REV.  EDWARD   E.   KALE'S  WRITINGS. 


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TEN    TIMES    ONE 
IS    TEN: 

THE  POSSIBLE  REFORMATION 


in 


COL.  FREDERIC    INGHAM 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1874. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1870,  by 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington 


CAMBRIDGE ! 
PBESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND  BOW. 


Ps 

O72. 


- FACE. 


'THHIS  little  book  would  never  have  been  writ 
ten,  I  suppose,  but  for  the  persuasion  of 
my  kind  friend,  the  late  Dr.  WAYLAND,  the  Presi 
dent  of  Brown  University.  It  is  nearly  fifteen 
years  ago  that  I  told  him  the  plan  of  this  story, 
if  it  may  be  called  a  story,  expressing  the  wish 
that  some  of  the  masters  would  undertake  to 
illustrate  the  lessons  involved  in  it.  Every  one 
who  knew  him  —  and  how  many  there  are  who 
knew  him  enough  to  love  him  !  —  will  remember 
how  practical  and  how  personal  was  every  notion 
of  the  religious  life,  of  Christian  labor,  and  of 
missionary  triumph,  in  his  mind.  What  he 
thought  the  practical  and  personal  character  :  f 
my  little  sketch  pleased  him  ;  and  he  was  kind 
enough  to  urge  me  once  and  again  to  enlarge  it, 
and  to  print  it.  I  think  it  is  because  he  wished 
it,  that  I  have  tried  to  do  so. 


VI  PREFACE. 

There  are  hundreds  of  people  who  know  that 
the  character  of  HARRY  WADSWORTH  and  his 
unselfish  influence  are  studied  from  the  life. 

I  dedicate  the  book  to  those  who  knew  him 
and  loved  him. 


EDWARD  E.  HALE. 


SOUTH  OONOKEOATIONAL  CHUKOH, 
BOBTON,  Sept.  17,  1870. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  PAGK 

I.    WHAT  BEGAN  IT 9 

II.    THREE  YEARS  AFTER 28 

III.  TEN  TIMES  A  HUNDRED 46 

IV.  TEN  TIMES  A  THOUSAND 78 

V.   EUROPE,  ASIA,   AFRICA,   AND  THE   ISLES   OF 

THE    OCKAN 90 

VI.   TEN  TIMKS  A  HUNDRED  THOUSAND.     ...     97 

VII.     TlIK    CONFERENZ    AT    CHRISTMAS    ISLAND      .       .    109 

VTIII.   TEN  TIMES  TEN  MILLION 118 

IX.   A  THOUSAND  MILLION 130 


T 


TEN  TIMES   ONE  IS  TEN. 
CHAPTER  I. 

WHAT    BEGAN    IT. 
[A  talk  in  Calabria,  after  dress  parade.] 

SUPPOSE  it  was  the  strangest  Club  that 
ever  came  into  being. 

There  were  these  ten  members  I  tell  you  of, 
And  they  have  never  met  but  this  once,  nor  do 
I  believe  they  will  ever  meet  again. 

They  met  in  the  railroad  station  at  North 
Colchester,  waiting  for  the  express  train.  The 
express  train,  if  you  happen  to  remember  that 
particular  afternoon  and  evening,  was  five  hours 
and  twenty  minutes  behind  time.  They  knew 
it  was  behind  time,  but  they  had  nowhere  else 
to  go,  and  it  was  then  and  there  that  the  Club 
was  formed. 

For  they  had  all  come  together  at  Harry 
Wadsworth's  funeral.  The  most  manly  and 
most  womanly  fellow  he,  whom  I  ever  knew; 


10  TEN    TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

the  merriest  and  the  freshest,  and  the  braves'*, 
and  the  wisest ;  the  most  sympathizing  when 
people  were  sorry,  and  the  most  sympathizing 
when  they  were  glad.  Thunder !  If  I  were  at 
home,  and  could  just  show  you  three  or  four  of 
Harry's  yellow  letters  that  lie  there,  then  you 
would  know  something  about  him.  Simply,  he 
was  the  most  spirited  man  who  ever  stumbled 
over  me ;  he  was  possessed,  and  possessed  with 
a  true  spirit,  —  that  was  what  he  was;  and  so 
he  had  guns  enough,  and  more  than  guns  enough, 
for  any  emergency. 

And  Harry  Wadsworth  had  died.  And  from 
north,  and  east,  and  south,  we  ten  there  had 
come  to  the  funeral.  And  we  were  waiting  for 
the  train,  as  I  said ;  and  that  is  the  way  the  Club 
was  born.  Then  and  there  it  had  its  first  meet- 
_Jng,  and,  as  I  say>  its  last,  most  likely. 

Bridget  Corcoran  may  strictly  be  called  the 
founder  of  the  Club,  unless  dear  Harry  himself 
was.  For  Bridget  Corcoran  was  the  first  person 
that  said  any  thing.  I  never  can  sit  still  very 
long  at  a  time  at  such  places.  And  I  had  sat  in 
my  chair  by  that  overfilled  stove,  in  that  stifling 
room,  as  long  as  I  could  stand  it,  and  a  good 


WHAT   BEGAN   IT.  11 

deal  longer,  none  of  us  saying  any  thing.  Then 
I  had  gone  out  and  walked  the  platform,  brood 
ing,  till  it  seemed  to  me  that  any  thing  was  bet 
ter  than  walking  the  platform.  Then  I  went  in 
again  to  find  the  air  just  as  dead  and  stived  and 
insupportable  as  it  was  before.  And  this  time 
I  left  the  door  open  and  walked  across  to  the 
back  window,  which  looked  on  a  different  wood 
pile  from  the  wood-pile  the  front  window  looked 
upon.  I  need  not  say  that  the  only  variety  in 
our  prospects  was  in  our  choice  of  wood-piles ; 
but  we  could  look  at  the  ends  of  sticks,  or  at  the 
sides  of  them,  as  we  preferred. 

I  walked  to  the  back  window,  and  began  look 
ing  at  the  back  wood-pile. 

"  You  knew  Mr.  Wadsworth  ? "  said  Bridget 
Corcoran,  timidly.  And  it  was  a  comfort  to 
me. 

"  Knew  him ! "  said  I ;  "  I  did  not  know  any 
body  else ! " 

"  I  like  to  tell  you  about  him  then,"  said  she, 
with  her  pleasant  Irish  accent.  "  I  like  to  tell 
every  one  about  him.  For,  save  for  him,  I  do 
not  know  where  I  should  be  this  day ;  and  I 
do  know  where  my  boy  Will  would  be." 


12  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

"  How  is  that  ?"  I  asked,  roused  up  a  little  by 
her  sympathy. 

"  Will,  sir,  would  be  in  the  State's  Prison  save 
for  him  you  carried  to  the  grave  this  day;  and 
for  me,  I  think  I  should  have  died  of  a  broken 
heart.  You  know,  your  reverence,  that  in  the 
charge  of  the  freight  station,  when  he  was  first 
appointed  here,  it  was  for  him  to  say  who  should 
have  the  chips,  and  who  should  not  have  them. 
And  he  was  so  good  —  as  he  always  was  —  as 
to  give  me  the  second  right  in  the  wood-yard ; 
Mary  Morris  always  having  the  first,  because 
her  husband,  who  is  now  switch-tender,  lost  his 
arm  in  the  great  smash-up  come  Michaelmas 
five  years  gone  by.  He  gave  me  the  second 
right,  I  say;  and  though  I  say  it  who  should 
not,  I  never  abused  my  privilege,  and  he  knew  I 
never  did,  your  reverence,  as  how  could  I,  when 
he  was  always  so  kind,  and  often  called  me  into 
his  office,  and  always  spoke  to  me  as  kindly  as 
if  I  was  a  born  lady,  as  indeed  he  was  a  born 
gentleman." 

Ah  me!  if  I  only  could  go  on  and  tell 
Bridget's  story  as  she  told  it  herself,  with  the 
thousand  pretty  praises  of  dear  Harry,  you 


WHAT   BEGAN   IT.  13 

would  better  understand  what  manner  of  man 
he  was,  and  how  the  Club  was  born.  But  there 
is  no  time  for  that,  and  this  was  the  story  shortly  • 
Harry  saw  one  day  that  her  eyes  were  red,  as 
she  passed  him,  and  he  would  not  rest  till  he  had 
called  her  into  the  office  and  found  why ;  and 
the  why  was,  that  her  boy  Will  had  "  hooked 
jack,"  as  the  youngster  said,  —  had  played  tru 
ant,  and  had  done  it  now  for  many  weeks  in 
order,  and  had  done  it  with  the  Tidd  boys,  and 
the  Donegans  (sons  of  perdition  as  they  always 
seemed),  and  nothing  Bridget  could  say  or  do 
would  put  Will  in  any  better  way.  Then  was 
<t  that  Harry  sent  for  the  little  rascal,  "  talked  to 
aim,"  she  said ;  but  I  knew  Harry  well  enough 
10  know  what  the  talking  was.  He  took  the 
boy  up  country  with  him  one  day,  when  he  was 
making  a  contract  for  some  wood.  He  stopped 
as-  they  came  back,  at  a  trout  stream,  and  bade 
the-  little  scamp  try  some  of  the  best  hooks  from 
hit*  book.  He  sent  him  home,  after  such  a 
glimpse  of  a  decent  boy's  pleasures,  as  nobody 
ever  had  shown  poor  Will  before.  He  sent  for 
him  the  next  day,  and  told  him  he  wanted  him 
in  the  office.  He  dressed  the  child  in  new  clothes 


14  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS  TEN. 

from  head  to  foot.  He  made  him  respect  him 
self,  in  forty  ways  you  or  I  would  never  have 
thought  of.  Before  three  weeks  were  gone,  Will 
was  as  lamed,  of  his  bad  handwriting.  Before 
four  weeks  were  gone,  he  was  ashamed  of  his 
old  company ;  in  a  fortnight  more,  he  was  the 
steadiest  scholar  in  the  "  Commercial  College  " 
of  the  place.  Before  three  months  were  over, 
he  came  to  Harry  with  some  lame  duck  of  a 
Tidd  boy  whom  he  had  lured  out  of  some  quag 
mire  or  other.  And  the  upshot  of  it  was,  that 
at  this  moment  Will  was  as  decent  a  boy  as 
there  was  in  the  county ;  while,  but  for  Harry, 
he  had  as  fair  chance  as  any  of  them  to  be 
hanged. 

That,  severely  condensed,  was  Bridget  Cor- 
coran's  story. 

Now,  I  have  no  idea  of  telling  how  Harry  had 
come  to  be  the  star' of  my  worship,  —  worship 
which  was  not  idolatry.  Talking  here  at  the 
head  of  the  regiment,  how  do  I  know  who 
might  overhear  me,  and  this  is  no  story  to  get 
into  the  newspapers.  But,  while  I  was  reflect 
ing  that  Harry  had  rescued  poor  Will  from 
one  set  of  devils,  and  me  from  devils  of  quite 


WHAT   BEGAN   IT.  15 

another  color,  Caroline  Leslie  looked  up.  She 
had  joined  Bridget  and  me  by  the  window. 

"  Do  you  mean  the  Caroline  Leslie  that  giveg 
the  bird  the  lump  of  sugar  in  Chalon's  picture  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes !  that  same  Caroline  Leslie.  Did 
you  know  her  ?  "  She  looked  up.  She  thankee 
Bridget  very  cordially.  "  I  thank  you  ever  sc 
much  for  telling  me  that.  It  has  comforted  me 
more  than  any  thing  to-day.  Will  you  not 
come  and  see  me  sometime  in  Worcester  ?  You 
will  find  me  in  907,  Summer  Street.  Let  me 
write  it  down  for  you."  So  Bridget  was 
pleased.  And  then  Caroline  got  up  and  asked 
me  to  walk,  and  took  my  arm,  and  we  walked 
the  platform  together;  and  she  told  me  what 
Harry  had  been  to  her.  How,  only  three  years 
before,  when  he  first  came  to  Colchester,  or  to 
that  village,  how  her  brother  Edward  brought 
him  home,  and  made  her  mother  say  he  might 
board  there.  How  her  mother  said  it  was  im 
possible,  but  consented  the  moment  she  saw 
Harry,  when  he  only  came  in  to  tea.  How  she, 
Caroline,  was  a  goose  and  a  fool,  and  a  dolt 
and  good-for-nothing,  when  he  moved  into  that 
house.  And  how  the  mere  presence  of  that 


16  TEN   TIMES  ONE   IS   TEN. 

man  in  that  family  —  or  was  it  his  books,  or 
was  it  the  people  that  came  to  see  him  ?  —  had 
changed  the  whole  direction  of  her  life,  as  an 
arrow's  direction  is  changed  when  it  glances  on 
the  side  of  a  temple.  Now,  Caroline  Leslie 
was  no  more  in  love  with  Harry  than  you  are 
Pretty  girl,  she  had  her  own  lover,  and  I  knew 
she  had.  And  he,  far  away  across  the  sea, 
would  shed  tears  as  bitter  as  hers  of  that  day, 
when  he  knew  he  was  never  to  see  Harry's  face 
again. 

But  we  were  only  three  of  the  Club —  Caro 
line,  Bridget,  and  I.  Count  Will  Corcoran  for 
four  if  you  like.  If  you  count  him,  the  Club  is 
eleven. 

But  what  I  tell  you  will  give  you  an  idea. 
For  as  soon  as  we  got  talking,  the  bakers  and 
the  baked  by  the  stove  got  talking ;  all  telling 
much  the  same  kind  of  story,  how  dear  Harry 
had  been  a  new  life  to  them.  Widdifield,  who 
you  would  have  said  had  no  sentiment,  quiet 
Mrs.  Emerson,  Mary  Merriam,  and  her  brother 
John,  and  even  Will  Morton.  I  must  not  try  to 
tell  the  stories,  though  I  could,  every  one.  We 
all  drew  together  at  last,  when  something  Mor- 


WHAT  BEGAN   IT.  17 

ton  said  drew  out  George  Dutton  to  "  state  his 
experience." 

"  Wadsworth  and  I,"  said  he,  "  went  out  in 
one  of  those  first  California  colonies,  —  when 
the  mutual  system  was  tried  in  all  sorts  of  ways, 
and  people  thought  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was 
coming  because  they  all  put  two  hundred  dollars 
apiece  into  a  joint-stock  company.  On  the  voy 
age  I  did  not  see  him  much,  and  I  know  I  did 
not  like  him.  How  strange  that  seems  now! 
For  there  was  no  reason  under  heaven  why  I 
should  not  have  found  him  out  at  the  very  first 
moment ;  and  now  it  seems  as  if  I  lost  so  much 
in  losing  all  the  chance  of  those  five  months. 
Well,  I  lost  it  —  for  better  or  worse.  We  came 
to  California,  and  the  colony  all  broke  up  into 
forty  thousand  pieces.  Little  enough  sticking 
by  each  other  there!  Each  man  for  himself; 
and,  as  always  happens  on  that  theory,  the  devil 
for  us  all,  with  a  vengeance ! 

"  I  roughed  through  every  thing.  Got  a  uttle 
dust  now  and  then,  and  spent  it  a  great  deal 
faster  than  I  got  it.  I  have  paid  one  hundred 
and  eighty-six  dollars  in  gold  for  a  pair  of  miner's 
boots, —  and  they  were  good  boots,  —  when  I 
2 


18  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

had  not  a  rag  beside  to  put  upon  my  feet.  At 
last  I  thought  my  lucky  time  had  come.  We 
were  up  in  what  they  then  called  the  Cotton- 
wood  Reach,  and  a  very  good  company  of  us 
had  struck  some  very  decent  diggings,  and  had 
laid  off  our  claims  with  something  like  precision, 
and  order,  and  decency.  Wadsworth,  as  I  hap 
pened  to  know,  was  with  some  men  who  had 
got  hold  of  a  water-privilege  three  or  four  miles 
above  us.  Some  of  our  men  had  been  up  to  see 
about  buying  some  water  from  him,  and  said  he 
was  quite  a  king  in  that  country.  But  I  had 
not  seen  him. 

"  Then  there  came  in  on  us,  just  as  we  got 
well  established,  a  lot  of  roughs,  blacklegs,  and 
rowdies,  of  every  nation  and  color  under  heaven. 
They  wanted  our  claims  ;  we  all  knew  that  well 
enough.  And  they  hung  round,  as  such  devils 
as  they  will,  trying  all  sorts  of  ways  to  get  a 
corner  of  the  wedge  in.  We  were  a  pretty 
decent  set ;  and  none  of  our  boys  really  liked 
them,  but  we  were  as  civil  as  we  could  be. 
Some  of  the  fellows  were  fools  enough  to  lose 
dust  to  them,  and  I  never  heard  that  any  of  them 
won  any.  They  pretended  to  stake  off  some 


WHAT   BEGAN   IT.  19 

claims  of  their  own,  but  they  never  worked  any 
of  any  account.  They  drank  their  whiskey, 
and  put  up  tents  and  shanties  for  gambling; 
and  swaggered  round  among  the  rest  of  us,  and 
said  they  knew  better  ways  for  washing  than  we 
did ;  and  so  on.  All  the  time  we  all  knew  that 
something  was  brewing,  while  they  were  about. 
And  sure  enough,  at  last  it  came. 

"  Watrous  and  Flanegan,  who  were  a  sort  of 
selectmen  to  us,  had  to  go  down  to  Agnes  City 
with  some  gold,  and  to  buy  some  pork.  And 
they  took  with  them  two  or  three  of  the  best 
fellows  we  had.  Watrous  came  to  me  the  last 
thing,  and  said,  '  Don't  you  get  into  a  quarrel 
with  these  greasers,'  for  he  knew  I  hated  them. 
But,  Mr.  Ingham,  a  saint  in  heaven  would  have 
quarrelled  with  those  men.  It  all  began  about 
a  shovel.  One  of  these  blackguards  came  up  to 
me  to  borrow  a  shovel,  and  I  let  him  have  it. 
Then  he  came  back  for  another,  and  I  let  him 
have  that.  Then  came  up  three  of  them  and 
wanted  three  shovels ;  and,  to  make  a  long  story 
short,  we  came  to  words  —  they  and  I.  They 
had  come  up  for  a  fight ;  and  they  got  it.  At 
last,  one  of  the  most  noisy  of  them,  —  to  give 


20  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

him  his  due,  he  was  half  drunk,  —  drew  his 
revolver  and  snapped  it  at  me.  Lucky  for  me 
it  missed  fire,  and  in  very  short  metre  I  hit  him 
over  the  head  with  the  crow-bar  I  was  using. 
O,  what  a  howl  they  made !  They  dashed  at 
me,  and  I  ran.  The  first  of  them  tripped  and 
fell ;  which  stopped  the  others  a  half  second. 
And  then  the  whole  tribe  of  them,  who  had  been 
watching  the  affair,  came  running  after  me, 
yelling  and  howling  like  so  many  wolves." 

By  this  time,  as  I  said,  Dutton  had  the  whole 
group  in  the  station  round  him. 

"Did  you  ever  run  for  your  life?"  said  he, 
with  a  funny  twinkle  of  the  eye.  "  I  tell  you, 
—  that  to  put  in  the  best  stride  you  know,  and 
to  clear  every  log,  and  take  no  help  at  any  ditch, 
but  just  to  run,  run,  run,  run,  —  half  a  mile, — 
three  quarters,  —  and  a  mile,  —  to  feel  your 
heart  up  in  your  throat,  your  lungs  pumping, 
and  pumping  nothing,  —  while  you  just  run, 
run,  run,  —  and  know  that  one  false  step  is 
death  ;  —  I  tell  you  that  is  what  a  man  remem 
bers.  That  was  the  way  I  ran.  I  dared  not 
look  back.  .  knew  I  was  well  ahead  of  all  but 
one  man.  But  I  could  hear  his  steady  step, 


WHAT   BEGAN   IT.  21 

step,  step,  step, — just  in  the  time  of  mine. 
Was  he  taller  than  I,  or  shorter  ?  I  dared  not 
look  round  and  see.  But  I  knew  his  stride 
depended  on  that.  He  was  gaining  nothing  on 
me  in  time ;  was  he  gaining  in  length  of  pace  ? 

"  Where  was  I  running  to  ?  Why,  to  our 
poor  little  shanty,  where  I  had  left  George 
Orcutt  lame  in  bed.  What  safety  would  that 
be  ?  These  devils  could  tear  it  down  in  thirty 
seconds.  I  did  not  know,  but  I  ran ! 

"  I  ran  —  with  the  one  man  close  behind,  and 
the  others  yelling  farther  back.  He  did  not  yell. 
He  saved  his  breath  for  running.  But  he  did 
not  catch  me.  I  flung  the  door  open.  I  crowd 
ed  down  the  latch.  I  stuck  a  domino  from  the 
table  in  between  the  latch  and  the  latch-guard, 
and  with  this  as  my  poor  fortress,  I  flung  myself 
on  the  floor.  The  man  dashed  up  after  me,  but 
did  not  so  much  as  try  the  door ! 

"  An  instant  showed  why  ;  for  in  ten  seconds 
the  wolves,  as  they  seemed,  were  howling  round 
him.  Then  the  man,  whoever  he  was,  said, 
'  The  first  man  that  steps  on  this  plank  is  a  dead 
man !  There's  been  enough  of  this  bullying ! 
Dirty  Dick,  take  care  you  are  not  seen  again  in 


22  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

this  county.  I  give  you  six  hours  to  be  gone ! 
Chip  and  Leathers,  you  had  best  go  with  him, 
or  without  him.  Your  room  is  better  than  your 
company.  I  will  have  the  sheriff  here  by  night, 
and  we  will  see  what  sort  of  men  are  going  to 
jump  claims  on  this  creek.  You  fellow  with  the 
red  beard,  who  ran  away  from  Angeles,  there's 
a  warrant  out  against  you.  Understand  all  of 
you,  that  this  game  is  played  about  through.' 

"  Who  was  this  celestial  visitant  ?  Orcutt 
and  I  listened  in  amazement.  Was  this  the 
way  Raphael  addressed  the  rebellious  spirits 
when  Milton  was  not  at  hand  ?  Any  way,  they 
answered  much  as  the  rebellious  spirits  would 
have  done.  Some  swore,  some  laughed,  other 
some,  on  the  outside,  turned  round  and  vamosed. 
So  Orcutt  told  me,  whose  eye  was  at  a  knot 
hole.  The  celestial  visitant  said  not  a  word 
more.  But  in  five  minutes  the  whole  crew  of 
them  was  gone. 

"  Then  I  unlatched  the  door.  Raphael  came 
in,  and  was  —  Harry  Wadsworth !  Yes :  that 
light,  frail  fellow,  whom  we  carried  so  easily 
to-day,  was  the  man  who  looked  those  beggars  in 
the  eye  that  day,  and  saved  my  life  for  me ! 


WHAT   BEGAN   IT.  23 

"  That  was  the  beginning  with  me,  and  there 
are  few  things  he  and  I  have  not  done  together 
since  that.  We  have  slept  under  the  same 
blanket,  and  starved  on  the  same  trail.  And 
if  any  man  ever  taught  me  any  thing,  that  dear 
fellow  taught  me  all  of  life  I  know  that  is  worth 
knowing." 

These  were  the  sort  of  stories  we  got  telling 
in  the  station-house,  and  it  was  out  of  such  talk 
that  the  project  of  the  Club  grew.  We  had  not 
known  each  other  before,  but  here  was  one  tie 
we  all  had  together.  Could  we  not  then  recog 
nize  it,  by  some  sort  of  gathering  or  correspond 
ence,  or  union?  Natural  enough  to  propose, 
but  you  see,  of  course,  what  followed. 

First,  Widdifield  —  as  good  a  fellow  as  lives, 
but  set,  or  as  the  vernacular  says,  "  sot,"  in  his 
ways — liked  the  idea  of  a  Club  very  much  ;  but 
thought  we  must  appoint  a  committee  to  draw 
up  some  little  mutual  covenant  or  expression  of 
principles  which  all  the  members  would  willingly 
agree  to.  "  Something,  you  know,  to  give  us 
a  little  substance."  Will  Morton  did  not  care 
so  much  for  any  statement  of  principles,  but 


24  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

thought  there  had  better  be  a  constitution  made 
If  he  had  not  changed  his  coat,  he  should  hav* 
had  in  his  pocket  the  constitution  of  the  Philire- 
nean,  which  would  perhaps  have  served  as  a 
good  model.  Mary  Merriam  did  not  care  about 
any  constitution,  but  thought  the  society  ought 
to  have  a  name  that  everybody  would  under 
stand.  Poor  Bridget  Corcoran  did  not  take  in 
much  of  all  this,  but  hated  clubs.  The  Sham 
rock  Club,  that  her  husband  had  belonged  to, 
had  worked  all  his  woe.  So  one  thought  this, 
and  another  said  that,  and  the  thing  happened, 
which,  so  far  as  I  know,  always  happens,  even 
when  ten  of  the  simplest  minded  people  in  the 
world  meet  together  with  any  common  purpose. 
There  has  to  be  a  certain  fixed  amount  of  talk, 
—  what  Haliburton  calls  the  "  talkee-talkee 
stage."  It  corresponds  to  the  fizz  of  common 
air  when  you  open  a  gas-pipe  for  the  first  time. 
It  blows  out  your  match,  and  you  have  to  wait 
some  little  while  before  any  thing  arrives  that 
will  burn. 

One  of  the  Wise  Men  of  the  East  —  was  it 
Louis  Agassiz  ?  —  said,  when  he  first  came  here, 
that  one  of  the  amazing  things  which  he  found 


WHAT  BEGAN  IT.  25 

in  America  was,  that  no  set  of  men  could  get 
together  to  do  any  thing,  though  there  were  but 
five  of  them,  unless  they  first  "  drew  up  a  con 
stitution."  If  ten  men  of  botany  met  in  a  hotel 
in  Switzerland  to  hear  a  paper  on  the  habits  of 
Tellia  Guilrelmensis,  they  sat  down  and  heard 
it.  But  if  nine  men  of  botany  here  meet  to 
hear  a  paper  read  on  Shermania  Rogeriana, 
they  have  to  spend  the  first  day,  first  in  a  tempo 
rary  organization,  then  in  appointing  a  committee 
to  draw  a  constitution,  then  in  correcting  the 
draft  made  by  them,  then  in  appointing  a  com 
mittee  to  nominate  officers,  and  then  in  choosing 
a  president,  vice-president,  two  secretaries,  and  a 
treasurer.  This  takes  all  the  first  day.  If  any 
of  these  people  are  fools  enough,  or  wise  enough 
("  persistent "  is  the  modern  word),  to  come  a 
second  time,  all  will  be  well,  and  they  will  hear 
about  the  Shermania. 

This  was  the  little  delay  which  killed  oui 
little  Club  at  the  moment  of  its  birth,  if,  indeed, 
it  were  killed  or  were  born.  With  regard  to 
that  there  is  a  doubt,  as  you  fellows  will  find 
out  if  we  should  ever  get  back  to  this  story 
again. 


26  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

[At  this  point,  however,  the  Quarter  Master, 
who  had  been  dying  to  say  something,  interrupted 
Ingham  to  say  it  would  have  been  better  if  the 
Club  had  had  something  to  eat,  as  the  organ 
ization  went  forward ;  and  on  that,  that  profane 
Dalrymple  said,  "  Better  something  to  drink." 
But  Ingham  placidly  explained  that  there  had 
never  been  any  thing  at  the  station  but  dough 
nuts,  and  those  somewhat  tough  and  musty, 
and  that  these  had  all  been  eaten  by  members 
who  had  no  dinner ;  that  for  supper  there  was 
nothing  left  but  lozenges,  of  which  the  supply 
was  unlimited,  but  of  which  man's  power  of 
consumption  is  of  nature  small.] 

So  we  spent  the  rest  of  our  five  hours  discuss 
ing  the  covenant,  the  name,  and  the  constitution 
of  our  little  society, —  and  when  at  last  we 
heard  the  scream  of  the  express,  and  saw  its 
light,  we  were  further  from  the  organization 
than  ever.  Everybody  looked  for  scrip  and 
staff  (carpet-bag  and  cane).  Everybody  seized 
his  coat  or  his  shawl ;  and  poor  Widdifield  and 
Morton  were  just  heard  pleading  for  a  committee 
to  draw  up  a  constitution,  or  "just  a  little 
formula,  you  know,"  when  the  train  stopped, 


WHAT   BEGAN   IT.  27 

and  we  stowed  away  as  we  could,  in  the  sepa 
rate  cars. 

For  all  that,  however,  these  people  loved 
Harry  with  their  hearts'  love ;  and  not  one  of 
them  meant  to  fail  in  the  impulse  he  had  given  ; 
no,  nor  ever  did  fail.  And  though,  as  I  said, 
the  Club  never  met  again,  and  never  can,  per 
haps  it  has  existed  to  as  much  purpose.  After 
the  train  was  under  way,  I  passed  along  from 
car  to  car,  and  asked  each  of  them  if  he  would 
not  write  me  some  day,  if  any  thing  turned  up 
which  brought  Harry  to  his  mind,  or  which 
would  have  pleased  him. 

Everybody  said,  "  Yes."  And  what  is  more, 
everybody  has  done  as  he  said.  So  I  have  this 
mass  of  letters  you  saw  in  my  desk,  marked 
"  Harry  Wadsworth ;"  and  it  is  that  mass  of 
letters  which  gives  me  the  material  for  the  really 
curious  story,  or  stories,  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 

If  you  will  come  round  to  my  tent  after  the 
parade  is  over,  I  will  show  you  some  of  them. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THREE    YEARS    AFTER. 
[  What  there  was  in  the  Letters.] 

~^HE  fellows  did  not  come  up  to  my  tent, 
regimental  headquarters,  that  night.  We 
were  on  our  way  up  after  the  parade,  when  pop, 
pop,  pop,  some  red-shirted  pickets  cracked  off 
their  rifles,  frightened  by  some  goats  I  believe ; 
for  all  this  happened  in  one  of  the  Calabrian 
Valleys.  The  companies  were  filing  off  to 
supper  as  the  shots  were  heard,  but  halted 
promptly  enough,  and,  in  a  minute  more,  we 
were  all  brought  back  to  parade  again.  I  ordered 
some  kettles  of  polenta  brought  down  for  the 
men  to  eat,  and  we  lounged  and  lay  there,  wait 
ing  news  and  orders  for  a  couple  of  hours.  Then 
it  was  clear  enough  that  the  whole  had  been  a 
false  alarm,  and  I  let  them  go  to  bed. 

But  a  week  or  two  after,  Dalrymple,  who  had 
made  a  good  deal  of  fun  about  the  Club,  came 
round,  and  Frank  Chaney  with  him.  Dalrymple 


THREE   YEARS   AFTER.  29 

knew  that  I  would  not  have  any  nonsense  about  it, 
and  indeed  he  was  quite  in  earnest  himself  when 
he  asked  me  to  bring  out  the  papers  and  tell 
them  more  about  the  Club  and  its  history.  I  told 
him  what  I  tell  you,  that  there  was  no  history : 
there  were  only  these  letters,  nine  of  them  as  it 
happened,  folded  together  and  marked  "  Harry 
Wadsworth."  An  odd-looking  set  they  were. 
A  letter  from  my»wife  Polly,  written  exactly  on 
the  third  anniversary  of  Harry's  funeral ;  letters 
of  all  sizes  and  shapes,  written  on  tappa,  brown 
paper,  white  paper,  all  sorts  of  paper;  stained, 
faded,  and  broken  at  the  edges,  but  all  of  them 
telling  of  the  lives  that  these  nine  of  the  original 
Club  had  been  leading.  Indeed,  when  we  came 
to  look  at  the  dates,  they  were  all  written  within 
a  month  of  that  same  anniversary  of  the  day 
which  we  wasted  together  in  the  station-house, 
called  deepo,  at  North  Colchester. 
The  letters  were  :  — 

A.  Dictated  by  Biddy  Corcoran  to  her  son 
Will,  and  in  the  most  elegant  of  clerkly  hand 
writing,  down  strokes  hard  and  up  strokes  fine, 
I  assure  you. 

B.  Caroline  Leslie's  —  she  had  not  changed 


30  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS  TEN. 

her  name  in  marrying  her  cousin  Harry,  the 
same  who  gave  her  the  canary-bird.  She  wrote 
from  Cronstadt,  Maine. 

C.  George    Dutton,   written    as   above,   on 
tappa  cloth  from  one  of  the  Kermadeck  Islands, 
in  the  South  Pacific. 

D.  Mrs.    Merriain, —  quiet,   every-day  letter, 
from  14  Albion  Street,  Brooklyn. 

E.  As  above,  Polly  Ingham's  to  me,  when  I 
was  very  far  off  soundings. 

F.  Widdifield's  —  he    had   accepted  a   place 
as  professor  in  Clinton  College,  Kentucky, 

G.  Will   Morton's  —  he  was  clerk  of  court 
in   Ethan   County,  Vermont;   always  has  been 
clerk  of  court,  as  his  father  was  before  him,  and 
as  his  son  will  be  after  him. 

H.  John  Merriam's  —  book-keeper  he,  with 
Pettingill  &  Fairbanks,  Chicago. 

I.  From  Mrs.  Emerson  —  head  of  a  girls' 
boarding-school  in  Fernandina,  Florida.  And 
I  had  filed,  in  the  same  file,  a  little  paper  of 
memoranda  of  my  own.  So  there  were  really 
the  autographs  of  all,  save  Mrs.  Corcoran,  of  the 
ten  of  the  Club  which  tried  vainly  to  form  itself 
at  North  Colchester. 


THREE   YEARS   AFTER.  31 

Ah  !  what  a  pity  it  is  that  I  may  not  print  all 
these  letters,  now  and  here.  If  only  I,  Frederic 
Ingham,  could  be  the  editor  of  a  monthly  mag 
azine  of  my  own !  If  only  I  had  85,555  readers, 
on  the  moderate  estimate  of  five  readers  to  each 
copy  sold,  and  they  were  all  so  prejudiced  in 
favor  of  the  Old  as  to  like  to  read  old  letters,  and 
yet  so  tolerant  of  the  New  as  to  be  willing  to 
read  my  speculations  upon  them !  Then  what  a 
title-page  could  I  not  make  up  from  these  letters 
alone,  for  the  whole  of  a  number,  giving  a 
courteous  refusal  to  all  "  eminent  contributors," 
and  all  good  assistants  not  quite  so  eminent. 

To  make  our  "  contents  on  cover :  "  — 

Biddy  Corcoran's  Home.     By  Herself. 

Life  by  the  Furnace. 

The  Kermadeck  Islands. 

Housekeeping.     By  a  Connoisseur. 

Polly  to  Fred. 

Recollections.     Prof.  Widdifield. 

Three  Years  of  Life.      W.  Morton. 

The  West  as  I  saw  it.     By  a  Big  Boy. 

A  New  Boarding-school.     Mrs.  Emerson. 

10  x  10  =  100.     Fred.  Ingham. 

There,  is  not  that  a  good  title-page  for  the 


32  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS  TEN. 

outside  of  your  new  magazine?  Would  not 
that  make  Mr.  Horace's  mouth  water,  as  he  drew 
up  his  advertisement?  Would  not  those  run 
ning  titles  be  attractive  as  men  opened  the  uncut 
pages  ?  If !  ah  if  only  I  might  myself  control 
these  MSS.  "  It  must  not  be,  this  giddy  trance." 
I  must  confine  myself  to  the  probable  restric 
tions.  "  Five  thousand  words,  or,  at  the  outside, 
five  thousand  five  hundred  for  a  single  number." 
These  are  the  hated  limits  in  which  I  live  and 
move  and  have  my  hampered  being.  Is  there 
not  some  worthless  epithet  above  which  I  can 
strike  out  ?  Ah  no  !  better  omit  all  Will  Corco- 
ran's  commercial  college  cliirography  in  one 
lump,  and  come  without  preface  to  pretty  Caro 
line  Leslie. 

CAROLINE  LESLIE'S  LETTER.     (B.) 

It  is  so  queer  to  see  where  people  will  turn  up 
when  you  least  expect  it.  Now  Caroline  Leslie, 
since  the  funeral,  had  married  her  cousin  Harry, 
the  same,  as  I  said,  who  gave  her  the  canary- 
bird  ;  and  he  had  taken  her  down  to  the  iron 
works  at  Cronstadt,  in  Piscataquis  County. 
Pretty  girl,  how  little  she  thought,  when  she  was 


THREE    TEARS    AFTER.  33 

giving  the  canary-bird  his  sugar,  that  she  was  to 
spend  five  years  of  her  life  in  a  house  just  one 
grade  above  a  log-cabin,  with  two  rooms  on  the 
ground  floor,  and  a  bed  in  her  parlor,  and  — 
which  was  perhaps  the  only  part  of  it  amiss 
—  that  all  her  friends  in  Worcester  were  to  be 
saying  that  it  was  "  so  fortunate  "  that  her  hus 
band  had  such  a  good  position !  Good  position 
it  was,  for  all  the  bed  in  the  parlor.  For  there 
Caroline  and  Harry  first  subdued  the  world 
there  were  her  first  three  children  born ;  and 
there,  as  the  letter  showed,  she  also  had  done  her 
share  of  Harry  Wadsworth's  work,  in  Harry 
Wadsworth's  way. 

When  they  went  down  there,  it  was  chaos 
come  again,  I  can  tell  you!  An  old  iron-furnace 
which  had  been  built  in  the  most  shiftless  and 
careless  way,  had  made  for  a  year  or  less  some 
iron  of  the  worst  quality,  so  that  the  reputation 
of  the  ore  was  all  lost,  and  had  then  been  left  to 
burn  out.  A  new  company,  with  some  capital 
from  Ibbotsons  or  Tubals,  or  some  sort  of  foreign 
iron  people,  had  gone  in,  and  had  sent  down 
George  Landrin,  who  knew  something  about 
making  iron,  to  redeem  the  reputation  of  the 


34  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

place,  and  Harry  Leslie  to  be  treasurer  and 
manager  as  far  as  George  Landrin  was  not. 
Instantly,  as  I  need  not  say,  Harry  Leslie  and 
Caroline  Leslie  were  married.  That  was  the 
fir^,  link  that  the  new  iron  company  forged,  and 
they  forged  it  without  knowing  that  they  did  so, 
by  appointing  him  assistant  treasurer,  with  a 
salary  of  fifteen  hundred  a  year.  They  were 
married,  went  to  Cronstadt  in  the  first  wagon 
after  the  roads  were  in  any  sort  opened,  and 
lived  there,  thirteen  miles  from  the  next  town, 
in  a  village  of  iron  men  ;  theirs  one  of  three 
framed  houses  —  all,  as  I  said,  one  grade  above 
a  log-cabin. 

"  Hajj  any  ssiety  thar  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Grundy  to 
Caroline  one  day  when  I  met  Caroline  at  her 
father's,  where  she  had  come  up  to  Thanksgiving. 
How  Caroline's  eyes  snapped  and  flashed  fire ! 
"  The  best  society,  Mrs.  Grundy,  I  ever  knew." 
And  so  it  was,  indeed,  thanks  to  Leslie,  and 
Landrin,  and  Harry  Wadsworth,  and  the  founder 
of  all  good  society,  the  Saviour  of  all  such  holes 
as  they  found  Cronstadt,  whose  notions  in  this 
matter  Harry  Wadsworth  and  these  fellows  had 
had  the  wit  and  heart  to  follow. 


THREE   YEARS   AFTER.  35 

Here  is  the  letter:  — 

"  CEONSTADT,  November  7. 

"DEAR  MRS.  INGHAM: 

"I  have  never  forgotten  that,  as  we  carne 
home  from  Mr.  Wadsworth's  funeral,  I  promised 
your  husband  I  would  some  day  write  to  you 
about  him.  And  though  I  have  put  it  off  so 
long,  I  have  always  meant  to  do  it.  But  you 
know  how  time  goes  by  without  our  putting  pen 
to  paper.  It  was  three  years  ago  that  we  all 
met  there  together.  I  cannot  believe  it. 

"  But  to-night  T  am  going  to  write  to  you,  foi 
I  do  not  know  where  your  husband  is,  and  he 
must  take  this  as  a  letter  to  him.  For  I  have 
been  thinking  of  Mr.  Wadsworth  all  day.  I 
think  of  him,  and  of  things  he  used  to  say  and 
do,  a  great  deal  now  we  are  here  in  this  new 
life,  and  I  have  to  try  so  many  experiments,  and 
do  so  many  things  for  the  first  time.  To-day  is 
Sunday,  and  on  Sundays  I  see  the  working-men 
here  even  more  than  I  do  on  other  days,  and 
they  are  more  disposed  to  talk,  or  perhaps  I  am. 
Harry  has  been  gone  for  nearly  a  week  now,  and 
will  not  be  back  till  next  Saturday,  so  Mr. 
Landrin  and  I  and  Sarah  had  to  manage  about 


36  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

the  tunes  and  singing  as  we  best  could  last  night. 
But  to-day  we  had  stalwart  help,  and  I  wish  you 
had  been  here  to  see  and  hear  our  choir.  We 
still  meet  for  service,  as  we  did  when  you  were 
here,  in  the  upper  carpenter's  shop ;  but  yesterday 
Sarah  and  Eunice  drove  the  men  out  just  before 
dark,  and  began  to  dress  the  two  chests  which 
make  the  pulpit  with  colored  leaves,  and  this 
morning  they  completed  their  decoration,  and 
made  quite  a  brilliant  show.  Joe  Deberry,  that 
French  charcoal  man  who  got  you  the  Lycopo- 
dium,  was  very  efficient  and  sympathetic.  Mr. 
Landrin  played  the  flute;  Will  Wattles  read 
part  of  a  sermon  out  of  the  '  Independent ; ' 
dear  old  Mr.  Mitchell  'led  in  prayer,'  and  we 
really  had  a  good  time  —  I  did,  and  we  all  did. 

"  When  we  sat  round  talking,  after  the  service, 
on  the  boards  and  the  benches,  and  a  good  many 
outside  in  the  sun,  I  attacked  old  Mrs.  Follett, 
and  won  her  heart  by  asking  her  how  I  could 
dye  some  yarn  I  have  here.  She  has  always 
been  a  little  shy  of  me,  but  she  got  talking  about 
this  place  as  it  was  in  the  old  dynasty. 

"  It  was  hell,  Mrs.  Leslie !  I  beg  your  pardon, 
but  it  was  just  hell  and  nothing  else.'  And 


THREE   YEARS   AFTER.  37 

really,  I  believe  it  was.  When  she  told  me  of 
the  drinking  and  gambling  and  fighting  of  men, 
and  fighting  of  dogs,  and  of  cocks,  and  of  hens 
and  women,  I  believe,  —  of  every  thing  really  that 
could  fight, —  wrhy,  Mrs.  Ingham,  when  she  told 
me  about  what  her  own  husband  was,  who  is 
now  as  nice  a  man  as  there  is  in  the  shop,  and 
what  a  life  she  led  with  him,  I  wondered  whether 
this  were  the  same  world.  She  thought  Mr. 
Landrin  and  Harry  had  done  a  great  deal  more 
than  they  have.  I  am  sure  all  we  could  do  here 
is  very  little.  But  Harry  has  put  his  foot  down, 
and  Mr.  Landrin  has  been  very  willing  to  help ; 
and  they  have  said  that  if  they  and  their  wives 
were  here,  it  should  be  a  decent  place  to  live  in ; 
and  when  I  see  how  happy  and  pleasant  the 
people  are,  and  when  I  think  how  little  I  used 
to  know  about  such  places  and  people  at  all,  I 
thank  God  for  bringing  me  here. 

"  All  the  singers  have  been  up  here  to-night 
practising.  I  wish  you  knew  them  all  as  well  as 
you  learned  to  know  Sarah  and  George  Fordyce 
when  you  were  here.  There  are  some  of  them 
who  have  just  that  sort  of  passion  for  my  Harry 
that  your  husband  has  for  Harry  Wadsworth. 


38  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

But  when  they  talk  to  Mr.  Leslie  about  what  he 
has  done  for  the  place,  he  laughs,  and  points  at 
Harry  Wadsworth's  picture,  and  says,  '  Don't 
thank  me, —  thank  him.'  Well,  to-night  ten  of 
them  came  round  to  sing,  and  before  we  began 
they  produced  a  beautiful  frame  for  Harry's 
picture,  and  asked  me  to  let  them  put  it  in,  for  a 
surprise  to  my  husband  when  he  comes  home. 
Then  they  began  to  talk  to  me  about  him,  and  I 
told  them  —  well,  you  know  what  I  told  them. 
And  I  could  see  the  tears  roll  down  George 
Fordyce's  face  as  I  talked  to  them.  And  when 
they  went  away,  he  said, c  We  have  never  known 
what  to  call  this  choir  class.  I  move  it  be 
called  the  Harry  Wadsworth  Club.'  And  they 
all  clapped  their  hands  and  said  it  should  be  so. 
So  after  all,  you  see,  your  husband's  club  is 
born. 

"  But  I  must  stop.  I  hear  Wally  crying  in 
the  other  room,  —  and  you  know  I  am  my  own 
nurse  now. 

"  Give   my  love   to    Mr.    Ingham  when   you 
write.     Always,  dear  Mrs.  Ingham, 
"  Your  own, 

"  CAROLINE  LESLIE." 


THREE   YEARS   AFTER.  39 

I  like  that  letter ;  I  like  that  woman ;  I  like 
that  place,  Cronstadt;  and  I  like  the  life  they 
lead  there.  But  I  should  not  have  filed  that 
letter,  and  carried  it  to  Italy  and  Sicily  with  me. 
if  the  others  that  came  about  the  same  time  had 
not  belonged  with  it ;  so  they  all  got  tied  up 
together.  Try  this :  — 


PROF.  WIDDIFIELD'S  LETTER.     (F.) 

"  CLINTON  COLLEGE,  BOURBON  COUNTY, 
KENTUCKY,  November  10 

"  REV.  F.  INGHAM,  ETC.,  ETC.  : 

"Dear  Sir,  —  In  private  conversation  with  a 
few  of  our  young  gentlemen  here,  I  showed  to 
them  such  of  the  letters  of  our  dear  Mr.  Wads- 
worth  as  I  have  with  me.  They  have  been  very 
much  impressed  by  their  spirit,  freshness,  and 
insight  into  true  life.  Do  you  see  any  impro 
priety  in  my  printing  privately,  say  a  dozen 
copies  for  such  of  these  friends  of  mine  as  I 
think  might  find  advantage  in  them?  And 
should  you  be  disposed  to  add  to  them  a  copy 
of  a  letter  you  once  read  to  me,  which  Mr. 


40  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

Wadsworth  wrote  to  you  when  he  entered  into 
the  Polk  and  Clay  canvass  so  honestly  ? 
"  Very  truly, 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  INCREASE  WIDDIFIELD." 

You  say  those  two  letters  are  exactly  alike  ? 
Of  course ;  they  are  all  alike.  This  tappa-cloth 
letter  is  just  like  that  glazed  note-paper  from 
Brooklyn.  Want  .to  hear  tappa-cloth?  It  is 
not  in  New  Zealandee.  Here  is  the  end  of 
it:  — 

"  It  is  not  true  that  I  am  always  in  scrapes. 
You  say  so,  I  know;  but  I  do  live  the  steadiest, 
stupidest  life  of  any  eight-day  clock  of  them  all. 
Only  you  do  not  hear  of  that.  It  is  only  when 
I  am  dragged  out  of  the  water  by  the  hair  of  my 
head  that  I  am  put  in  the  newspaper,  or  happen 
to  mention  the  incident,  and  then  you  all  say, 
*  Dutton  is  always  being  dragged  out  of  the 
water.'  This  time  it  was  not  metaphorically. 

"  I  had  gone  off  in  the  Monarch,  as  she  took 
our  six  months'  collection  of  be che-la-mer,  to  see 
the  last  of  her  officers  and  to  get  them  well  out 
side  the  reef,  and  I  had  with  me  my  own  canoe. 


THREE   YEARS   AFTER.  41 

and  eight  of  these  native  boatmen.  They  are 
the  best  fellows  in  the  world.  See  if  you  do  not 
say  so  before  I  have  done.  I  bade  the  English 
men  good-by ;  they  lay  to  while  I  jumped  down 
into  my  boat;  and  we  were  off,  and  I  started 
back  for  the  Cannibal  Islands,  all  my  men 
paddling.  Things  looked  a  little  grum  when 
we  started;  there  was  just  the  beginning  of  a 
nasty  Souther,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  stayed  in 
the  captain's  cabin  a  little  later  than  I  meant  to. 
But  the  men  did  not  mind.  I  don't  think  they 
would  mind  if  they  had  been  in  so  many  cocoa- 
nut  shells  with  salt-spoons  to  bale  with.  They 
just  stretched  to  their  paddling,  begged  the  after 
man  to  see  that  I  was  warmly  covered,  and 
began  chanting  this  missionary  song, — 

'  Womar  iti  enata  bacha  epoku.' 

How  well  I  came  to  know  that  refrain  before  I 
was  asleep,  and  after!  For  I  did  fall  asleep, and 
the  first  thing  I  knew  George  caught  me  by  the 
leg,  dragged  me  awake,  and  showed  me  that  we 
had  come  to  the  breakers.  The  sun  was  down, 
but  it  was  light  enough,  what  with  waves,  and 
phosphorescence,  and  stars,  to  make  the  wildest 
sight  that  ever  you  or  I  looked  upon.  Ingham, 


42  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS   TEN. 

the  thing  I  thought  of  was  the  Cottonwood 
claims,  and  my  run  for  my  life,  and  Harry 
Wadsworth's  appearing  to  the  rescue.  I  knew 
it  would  all  be  over  in  two  minutes.  But  I 
spoke  cheerily  to  the  men ;  said,  '  All  right,' 
which  is  one  of  their  favorite  words,  had  that 
strange  feeling  come  over  me,  which  I  dare  say 
you  have  felt,  when  one  looks  death  right  in  the 
face  —  the  feeling,  '  Now  I  shall  know;'  nodded 
to  George,  who  calls  himself  in  their  pretty  way, 
nia-keiki,'  which  means  foster-brother,  and  said, 
'  God  bless  you '  to  him,  and  the  next  second  we 
were  under  twenty  feet  of  water.  Nobody  but 
madmen  would  have  expected  to  cross  that  reef 
with  that  gale  blowing! 

"  Of  course  I  came  to  the  surface,  and  of 
course  the  curlers  swung  me  over  the  coral  in 
less  than  no  time  !  If  only  they  did  not  swing 
me  upon  the  next  ledge  in  lesser  yet !  I  could 
not  hold  out  five  minutes  in  that  swirl  and  spray, 
and  I  knew  I  could  not.  But  before  I  had  time 
to  think  much  about  it,  before  I  had  even  a 
chance  to  clear  the  water  from  my  eyes  to  try 
to  see  about  it,  a  strong  wiry  hand  had  me 
under  the  armpit,  and  I  heard  George's  gentle 


THREE   YEARS   AFTER.  43 

> 

voice  say,  '  All  right,'  and  then  in  their  own 
language  he  went  on  to  tell  me  not  to  be  fright 
ened.  I  was  frightened,  for  the  first  time,  for 
I  thought  I  knew  the  faithful  fellow  could  do 
nothing  for  me,  and  I  was  afraid  he  would  lose 
his  own  life  trying  to  save  mine.  In  much  few 
er  words  I  told  him  so.  But  he  said  just  as 
sweetly  as  before,  '  If  I  die,  you  die ;  and  if  I 
live,  you  live.'  And  just  then  I  began  to  see ; 
and  near  us,  in  this  hollow  where  we  were, 
between  two  ridges  of  breakers,  was  another  of 
these  loving  creatures,  who  said  just  the  same 
thing,  «  If  I  die,  you  die ;  if  I  live,  you  live.' 

"  Ingham,  I  believe  the  men  saved  me  by  say 
ing  that  more  than  by  all  the  wonderful  things 
they  did  in  the  next  half  hour.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  it  would  be  so  mean  if  I  swamped  them 
or  sunk  them,  that  I  stuck  to  my  work  as  I  never 
would  or  could  have  done  had  I  been  alone. 
And  they  —  the  way  they  lifted,  and  pushed, 
and  pulled,  —  the  way  they  towed  me  and  shoved 
me,  —  if  we  ever  meet,  you  will  laugh  yourself 
to  death  as  I  tell  you,  and  yet  it  was  no  laugh 
ing  matter  then.  All  eight  held  together,  and 
held  by  clumsy,  logy  me.  They  understood 


44  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN.       , 

each  other  by  instinct,  and  they  took  me  in  as 
they  would  have  taken  in  an  upset  canoe  if  they 
had  found  one  floating  in  the  offing. 

"  In  half  an  hour  I  was  lying  on  the  beach 
here ;  these  loving  fellows  were  chafing  me, 
lomy-lomying  me,  and  rubbing  oil  into  me.  I 
could  not  speak,  but  I  was  alive  and  in  this  world. 

"  And  what  do  you  suppose  was  the  first 
thing  they  did  the  next  morning.  I  was  asleep, 
as  you  may  imagine,  but  at  sunrise  every  man 
of  them  went  off  in  the  offing,  which  was  calm 
enough  now,  to  hunt  up  what  was  left  of  my 
boat  and  to  bring  her  in.  And  when  I  scolded 
George  for  this,  and  told  him  the  boat  was  not 
worth  the  risk,  he  said  they  knew  I  loved  the 
boat ;  they  knew  I  had  named  the  boat  <  Harry/ 
and  that  my  Harry-boat  was  not  to  be  lost  if 
they  could  save  her.  Fred,  that  was  the  first 
time  I  broke  down.  I  fairly  cried  at  that.  And, 
ever  since,  they  have  called  themselves  the 
*  Harry-boatmen.' " 

You  see  it  is  as  I  said,  they  are  all  the  same 
letter,  only  they  are  written  by  different  hands, 
in  different  inks,  on  different  sorts  of  paper. 


THREE   YEARS    AFTER.  45 

Polly  had  tied  them  all  up,  as  they  came  in, 
one  after  another,  for  six  months,  and  labelled 
them  "  Harry  Wadsworth,"  as  you  saw.  Then 
one  day  as  she  went  over  them,  she  was  tempted 
to  count  up  the  people  whom  these  ten  letter- 
writers  told  of,  as  having  got  clew  to  our  en 
thusiasm  about  him. 

Here  were    Caroline   Leslie's   Harry  Wadsworth 

Club 10 

Prof.  Widdifield's  Seniors :  12 

George  Dutton's  Harry-boatmen 8 

John  Merriam's  set 7 

Mrs.  Emerson's  "  first  class  " 11 

Biddy  Corcoran,  Will,  the  Tidd  boys  and  the  Tidd 

boys'  father  and  mother      ........  8 

Mrs.  Merriam's  Sewing  Club  for  Newsboys  ...  13 
Polly's  two  children  and  the  two  servants,  with 

Mrs.  Standish 5 

Will  Morton  and  the  Base-Ball  Club  at  Ethan  .     .  19 
And  the  men  in  my  own  watch,  the  old  quarter 
master  and  his  son,  and  the  others  who  messed 

with  them,  were 9 

Polly  counted  them  up.  There  were  103  in 
all.  But  Biddy  Corcoran  and  Will  Morton  had 
been  counted  in  the  old  Club  of  the  station. 
"  There  are  101  new  members,"  said  Polly. 
"  Ten  times  ten  is  a  hundred.  And  it  was  only 
three  years  ago." 


CHAPTER  III. 

TEN    TIMES    A    HUNDRED. 

[An  Experience  of  Dairy mple's.] 

"V\  7ELL !  we  subdued  the  world  as  we  could 
in  Calabria.  Then  we  returned  to  our 
respective  homes :  Garibaldi  to  his  island,  I  to 
No.  9  in  the  Third  Range,  Frank  Chaney  to 
Scrooby,  and  Dalrymple  to  that  truly  English 
home  in  Norfolk,  which  nothing  had  driven  him 
from  but  the  unrest  of  an  Englishman,  —  some 
lo  gad-fly,  —  and  the  desire  of  seeing  Italy 
righted,  and  Vittorio  on  the  throne  of  Bourbon. 
In  these  respective  spheres,  as  assigned  to  us, 
we  did  our  part ;  and  I,  for  mine,  embarked  in 
the  manufacture  of  a  new  sphere  and  new 
world,  of  which  no  more  at  present. 

Then  was  it  that  the  parents  of  Dalrymple 
urged  him  to  do  his  duty  to  the  respectable 
Norman  baron  who  founded  his  line,  and  "  settle 
down."  Then  was  it  that  Dalrymple,  seeking 
for  trout  in  a  brook  that  ran  through  the  ances- 


TEN    TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  47 

tral  domain,  met  Mabel  Harlakenden,  the  young 
est  daughter  of  a  neighboring  house.  She  was 
sitting  on  a  mossy  rock,  her  feet  hidden  in  ferns, 
and  reading  "  Coventry  Patmore."  Dalrymple 
and  she  had  not  met  since  he  broke  her  father's 
window  with  a  horse-chestnut  on  the  day  of 
her  tenth  birthday.  Then  was  it  that  he  intro 
duced  himself  to  her  again,  and  fished  no  more 
that  day,  nor  did  she  read  any  more.  Three 
months  after  was  it  that  in  the  parish  church 
he  gave  her  a  ring.  The  minister  took  the  ring 
and  gave  it  to  Dalrymple,  and  he  then  put  it  on 
the  fourth  finger  of  Mabel  Harlakenden's  left 
hand.  Then  he  was  taught  by  the  minister. 
And  then  they  all  went  home  to  Dalrymple's 
father's  house  to  live  there. 

"  Was  she  a  descendant  of  Mabel  Harlaken 
den  of  Kent  ?  " 

Yes,  she  was.  Why  do  you  interrupt  ?  That 
has  nothing  to  do  with'  the  story,  and  your 
question  took  nine  words. 

Then  Dalrymple  proved  to  be  less  settled 
than  ever.  And  it  proved  that  Mabel  liked 
travelling,  if  it  were  real  travelling,  just  as  much 
as  he.  She  hated  Paris,  so  did  he.  He  hated 


48  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

Baden-Baden,  —  lucky  for  her,  —  so  did  she. 
He  had  fished  all  Norway,  so  had  she.  She 
had  hob-nobbed  with  bandits  in  Calabria,  so 
had  he.  Had  she  ever  been  to  America  ?  — 
"  No,  dearest,  no  !  "  Would  she  like  to  ?  He 
had  a  friend  in  America,  who  would  put  them 
through,  —  a  man  who  was  with  him  in  Calabria. 
There  was  nothing  Mabel  would  like  better.  So 
instead  of  "  settling  down,"  as  good  Mr.  Charles 
Dalrymple  had  expected,  these  young  people, 
three  months  after  marriage,  took  passage  in 
the  Europa,  Captain  Leitch,  arrived  in  Boston, 
stopped  at  Parker's,  took  the  evening  boat  to 
Hallowell,  train  next  day  to  Skowhegan,  and  in 
two  days  more  were  laughing  and  talking  at  our 
table  at  No.  9,  in  the  Third  Range. 

The  prettiest  English  girl  I  ever  saw  was  Ma 
bel, —  is  Mabel,  let  me  say,  as  she  is  not  here 
to  frown.  Dalrymple  got  his  wooden  bowl  that 
time.  No  !  I  will  not  -describe  her.  You  should 
have  asked  him,  if  you  wanted  to  know.  And 
Mabel  and  he  fished  in  our  brooks,  guided  by  my 
Alice  and  Paulina,  who  in  their  way  were  as 
good  fishermen  as  he. 

One  night,  as  we  sat  together,  Dalrymple  said, 


TEN   TIMES   A    HUNDRED.  49 

»{ Will  you  show  my  wife  those  Wads  worth 
Papers  ?  » 

"  Do  show  them  to  us,  Mr.  Ingham,"  said  the 
pretty  girl.  "  Horace  has  told  me  about  them 
once  and  again,  —  they  were  the  very  first  things 
T  knew  of  you." 

Well  pleased,  I  produced  the  papers-,  and 
showed  them  all  I  have  shown  you,  and  more. 
Then  we  fell  talking  together  about  Harry,  and 
the  Leslies,  and  Dutton,  and  all  these  people ; 
and  Polly  raked  out  more  letters,  which  I  have 
not  pretended  to  show  you,  telling  how  they  had 
all  fared  in  the  three  years  which  had  gone  by 
since  she  tied  those  nine  or  ten  together.  Then 
Dalrymple  asked  if,  in  America,  people  always 
shot  apart  from  each  other  as  all  of  us  had  done, 
—  here  was  Harry,  born  in  Maine,  to  die  in 
Massachusetts;  here  was  I,  born  in  Connecti 
cut,  living  in  Maine ;  here  was  Dutton,  born  in 
Massachusetts,  drowning  off  the  Kermadeck  Is 
lands.  Was  it  always  so  ?  And  I  told  him  the 
census  would  tell  him  that  in  1860  there  were 
near  seven  hundred  thousand  people  in  Iowa, 
where  in  1850  there  were  not  two  hundred  thou 
sand  ;  that  the  other  five  hundred  thousand  were 
4 


50  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS   TEN. 

born  somewhere ;  and  that  the  same  year  there 
were  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  thousand  peo 
ple  who  had  been  bom  in  Maine,  who  were 
living  in  other  States,  while  only  four  times  that 
number,  men,  women,  and  children  who  were 
bom  in  Maine,  were  living  there.  I  suppose 
that  half  the  men  and  women  had  emigrated. 
"  Happy  country,"  cried  Dalrymple,  "  where  no 
man  settles  down  !  " 

Then  Mabel  suggested  to  him  that  as  they 
had  no  plan  of  travel,  as  it  would  be  fatal  if  they 
should  settle  down  in  No.  9,  which  they  seemed 
likely  to  do,  he  could  have  no  better  clew  to  fol 
low  in  this  labyrinth  of  States  than  the  thread  of 
the  very  letters  he  had  in  his  hands.  "  You  love 
Harry  Wadsworth,"  she  said,  "  as  well  as  any 
one  can  who  never  saw  him.  I  am  sure  I  do." 
And  her  great  blue  eyes  were  full  of  tears.  "  Let 
us  go  and  see  Mrs.  Emerson  in  Brooklyn,  —  I 
am  sure  dear  Mrs.  Ingham  will  give  me  a  letter 
to  her ;  you  shall  go  to  Vermont,  —  is  that  the 
name  ?  —  and  see  Mr.  Morton  ;  we  will  both  go 
to  Chicago,  —  which  till  I  heard  you  speak,  Mr. 
Ingham,  I  always  called  Chickago,  —  and  Harry 
Wadsworth  shall  introduce  us  to  America/' 


M 

TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  51 

And  so  it  was  ordered.  They  stayed  with  us  a 
month  longer.  I  will  not  tell  how  many  trout 
they  caught,  for  I  should  have  every  cockney 
scared  from  the  Adirondacks  down  on  No.  9  if  I 
did.  But  at  last  the  good-byes  came,  and  they 
started  on  their  way. 

No !  I  shall  not  write  the  history  of  their 
travels.  Little  Mrs.  Dalrymple  may  do  that 
herself,  and  I  wish  she  would.  I  have  only  to 
tell  where  they  crossed  Harry  Wadsworth's  track 
again. 

Dalrymple  chose  to  take  boat,  instead  of  rail, 
west  from  Buffalo.  So  they  sailed  one  evening 
in  the  Deerhound,  a  famous  boat  of  those  days> 
and  their  first  experience  of  the  floating  palace 
of  the  western  waters.  Sunset,  twilight,  evening 
of  that  June  day,  were  as  beautiful  as  hearts 
could  wish,  and  again  and  again  this  young 
bride  and  bridegroom  congratulated  themselves 
that  they  had  forsworn  the  train.  When  bed 
time  came,  Horace  led  Mabel  in  from  the  guards 
where  they  had  been  watching  the  moon  ;  but 
before  they  went  to  their  state-room  after  mid 
night,  they  stopped  to  watch  some  euchre-play 
ers  who  were  sitting  up  late  in  the  great  saloon. 


TEN  TIMES   ONE  IS  TEN. 

As  they  sat  there,  the  captain  lounged  in.  They 
knew  him  by  sight;  he  had  done  the  honors  at 
the  tea-table.  He  came  up  to  the  table,  and 
said,  "  Gentlemen,  I  want  you  to  come  forward, 
and  see  this  schooner  on  our  quarter."  Mabel 
took  her  husband's  arm  to  go  with  him  ;  but  the 
captain  said,  "  No,  madam,  it  is  too  damp  for 
you ;  we  will  not  keep  your  husband  long,"  and 
with  the  other  men  walked  away. 

Horace  stayed  —  how  long  —  one  minute  or 
ten  —  Mabel  does  not  know.  But  when  he  came 
back  it  was  very  quickly,  and  he  said  in  a  low 
tone  to  the  three  women  who  sat  together  around 
the  deserted  table,  "  The  boat  is  on  fire ;  dress  the 
children,  and  wake  the  passengers  as  quietly  as 
you  can.  Mabel,  wait  for  me  in  the  after-part 
of  the  saloon  below  this.  I  will  come  to  you 
there."  And  he  was  gone. 

Mabel  was  probably  never  so  completely  her 
own  mistress  in  her  life.  She  saw  that  the 
saloon  was  as  yet  uninvaded.  She  called  the 
sleepy  chambermaids,  and  gave  them  their  mes 
sages  so  calmly  that  they  were  not  frightened, 
From  state-room  to  state-room  she  passed  along, 
and  knocked  up  the  sleepers,  till  her  share  was 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  53 

done,  and  well  done.  Then  she  went  to  their 
own  state-room,  took  the  travelling-sack  in  which 
Horace  had  his  money  and  his  letters ;  went 
downstairs  to  the  after  saloon,  to  wait  there  as 
she  was  bidden. 

All  this  time  it  was  amazing  to  her  that  there 
was  so  little  noise.  The  engines  were  stopped. 
That  s.he  noticed.  She  heard  the  men  at  work 
forward,  but  forward  was  far,  far  away.  If  she 
listened,  she  did  not  know  what  were  the  noises 
she  heard, —  plashes;  heavy  blows  as  of  cutting 
timber;  plashes  again,  —  an  occasional  sharp 
word  which  she  did  not  understand,  but  around 
her  the  still  monotone  of  the  saloon,  in  which 
there  were  only  herself  and  two  little  girls  and 
their  mother.  And  how  long  this  lasted  Mabel 
did  not  know. 

But  at  last  the  smoke  came.  Something  — 
bulkhead  or  what  —  I  do  not  know —  something 
gave  way  forward,  and  the  smoke  came,  driving, 
piling  right  in  upon  them,  so  that  those  hateful 
lamps  which  had  been  so  still  and  clear  and  un 
conscious,  became,  of  a  sudden,  dim  spots  in  fog 
The  children  cried  and  coughed.  Mabel  and 
their  mother  fyeld  them  to  the  open  windows. 


54  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

But  this  could  not  last,  —  the  smoke  was  den 
ser  and  denser ;  the  women  dropped  the  children 
out  on  a  pile  of  cordage  that  was  coiled  up 
in  the  narrow  passage-way  behind  the  cabin, 
then  clambered  out  of  the  windows  themselves, 
and  in  that  narrow  passage,  cramped  between 
the  cabin  wall  and  the  after-railing,  stood  alone 
with  the  little  ones.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  she 
understood  that  some  freak  of  the  fire  had  cut 
her  off  from  the  main  body  of  the  passengers 
and  from  her  husband.  Or  were  they  four 
together  there,  the  only  persons  living  out  of  all  ? 
No !  somebody  was  alive  forward,  for  although 
for  a  few  minutes  the  air  "was  almost  clear,  that 
lasted  only  for  a  few  minutes ;  —  the  fire  was 
gaining  forward,  and  of  a  sudden  the  engines 
began  to  move  again.  The  other  woman  said  to 
Mabel,  "  They  are  driving  her  ashore."  What 
ever  was  the  reason,  it  seemed  fatal  to  them. 
The  stream  of  hot  air  and  hot  smoke  now  circled 
all  round  them,  so  that  indeed  they  could  scarcely 
breathe.  Mabel  looked  over  the  rail,  and  so  did 
the  poor  mother.  They  could  see  the  projecting 
after  timbers  and  the  rudder-head  passing  through 
them,  —  they  must  do  something,  —  and  without 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  55 

a  word  Mabel  climbed  down,  stayed  herself 
firmly  by  one  of  the  cross-chains  which  she 
found  there  connecting  with  the  rudder,  observed 
that  neither  chain  nor  rudder  moved  any  longer, 
and  then  bade  the  other  woman  pass  her  one 
of  the  children,  and  come  down  herself  with 
the  youngest,  which  she  did.  How  long  that 
lasted,  Mabel  did  not  know,  —  whether  it  was 
five  miles  or  five  minutes  that  they  rushed  over 
that  foaming  sea,  with  that  hot  air  above  them, 
with  this  slippery  foothold  below,  and  her  arms 
growing  so  tired  as  she  held  child  and  chain. 
Not  so  long  but  she  did  hold  on,  however,  till  of 
a  sudden  a  sharp  explosion  forward  taught  them 
both  that  a  crisis  had  come.  In  a  moment  more 
the  way  of  the  boat  was  checked,  and  in  two 
minutes  Mabel  saw  that  all  was  still,  —  but 
the  fire.  Still  that  did  not  drift  fiercely  back 
upon  them  now. 

Nobody  came  near  them.  Probably  nobody 
could  come.  But  when  that  horrible  weird 
motion  over  the  foam  stopped,  Mabel  was  brav 
er  As  for  the  other  woman,  she  never  showed 
sign  of  terror  from  the  beginning.  Mabel  now 
found  she  could  lower  herself  enough  to  sit  upon 


56  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

the  top  of  the  rudder,  and  stay  herself  by  a  chain 
above.  She  did  not  dare  climb  up  upon  the 
boat  again  ;  she  then  got  the  child  in  her  arms, 
and  moved  out  far  enough  to  make  room  for 
the  other  woman.  And  there,  with  cinders  and 
smoke  flying  over  their  heads,  in  water  to  their 
armpits,  holding  by  rod  and  chain  above  them, 
each  with  a  child  embraced,  —  there  those  women 
sat,  it  must  have  been  for  hours.  I  remember 
Mabel  told  me  she  had  to  wet  the  rod  above  her 
with  the  water  at  last,  when  the  fire  from  the 
wreck  above  heated  the  rod  so  that  she  could 
not  hold  it  in  her  hand.  She  trained  the  child 
to  splash  water  up  to  it  so  as  to  keep  it  cool. 

Meanwhile  all  they  could  see  was  flame  and 
smoke  in  volumes  borne  high  in  the  air,  but 
away  from  them,  by  the  gentle  wind,  as  the  fire 
slowly  worked  its  way  along  to  them.  All  they 
could  hear  was  the  roaring  of  the  flames. 

But  flames  and  smoke  were  borne  away  from 
them.  The  wreck  was  drifting  and  drifting 
nnarer  and  nearer  to  the  Ohio  shore.  And  so 
in  the  gray  morning  the  end  came.  It  ground 
ed.  Mabel  had  seen  the  stars  grow  pale,  it  had 
seemed  to  her  that  "the  dawning  gray  would 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  57 

never  dapple  into  day,"  but  it  was  lighter,  —  light 
enough  for  her  to  see  the  shore,  —  and  then  one, 
two,  three  little  boats  pushing  towards  them. 
And  then  for  the  first  time  these  women  spoke 
louder  than  their  breath,  and  the  little  children 
cried  aloud  again  with  them.  The  cry  did  little, 
I  suppose,  but  a  white  handkerchief  did  more. 
Swift  and  straight  a  flat-boat  dashed  down  to 
them,  a  boat-hook  struck  in  the  stern-timber 
above  Mabel's  head ;  two  men  in  the  bows 
clutched  the  two  women  ;  and  some  one  cried, 
"  Back  her,  back  her,"  and  they  and  the  two 
children  were  safe. 

They  took  them  to  the  kindest,  loveliest,  poor 
est  home  in  Ohio,  which  was  just  behind  the 
beach.  Tender  hands  undressed  those  women 
and  children,  chafed  their  swollen  arms  and 
hands,  rubbed  them  warm  and  dry,  dressed 
them  in  the  best  the  cabin  had,  laid  them  on 
homespun  sheets,  as  clean  as  they  were  coarse. 
And  all  four  slept,  —  as  you  never  slept. 

When  Mabel  awoke  just  before  nightfall,  and 
tried  to  make  out  where  she  was,  wondering  at 
the  slabs  above  her  and  around  her,  at  the  walls 
papered  with  Frank  Leslie's  journal,  the  only 


58  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

thing  her  eye  lighted  on,  that  she  ever  saw 
before,  was  the  portrait  of  Harry  Wadsworth! 
That  was  pinned  upon  the  door. 

This,  then,  was  what  Mabel  had  taken  the 
ring  on  her  finger  for;  what  she  had  left  her 
father's  house  in  Norfolk  for ;  what  she  had 
started  to  see  the  world  for !  To  find  herself 
lying  in  these  coarse  homespun  sheets,  on  that 
queer,  high,  creaking  bedstead ;  looking  Harry 
Wadsworth's  picture  in  the  face ;  opening  her 
fingers  to  see  if  she  could  open  them,  after  all 
that  clinging  to  the  rod  and  chain  ;  and  trying, 
by  such  foolish  things  as  that,  to  keep  herself 
from  asking  where  Horace  was  —  if  he  were  in 
this  world  or  in  another ;  where  his  body  was  — 
ah  !  how  wretched  —  and  what  she  should  do  ? 
To  pretend  to  drive  these  questions  out  of  her 
head,  she  opened  and  shut  her  hands,  and  won 
dered  if  the  rust-stains  would  ever  wash  off,  and 
looked  at  her  wedding-ring,  and  remembered  the 
parish  church  and  that  winter  morning  when 
Horace  put  it  there.  It  was  not  in  that  way 
that  she  would  forget  asking  where  he  was,  or 
if  he  was  in  this  world  or  another ! 

Mabel  sat  up  in  the  bed.    Every  thing  seemed 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  59 

terribly  still.  She  looked  round  the  little  room. 
There  was  not  a  shoe  or  stocking  on  the  floor, 
nor  any  of  her  clothes  on  the  one  wooden  chair. 

"  Alice  ! "  cried  Mabel  at  last.  For  "  Alice  " 
was  the  only  name  she  knew  of  all  the  people 
who  had  surrounded  her  in  these  terrible  hours. 
They  had  called  the  little  girl  "  baby,"  though 
she  was  four  or  five  years  old.  The  children 
had  called  their  mother  "  mother,"  and  "  Alice  " 
was  the  only  name  that  had  been  spoken. 

Alice  did  not  come,  but  in  her  place  a  nice, 
motherly  old  lady  came,  who  looked  almost  as 
different  from  anybody.  Mabel  had  ever  seen 
before  as  if  she  had  been  one  of  Button's  Ker- 
madeck  men.  But  there  was  the  touch  of  nature 
there,  and  Mabel  and  she  were  kin. 

"Dear  child,"  said  the  old  woman,  "cannot 
you  sleep  any  more  ?  Do  you  feel  at  all  rest 
ed  1" 

u  Have  they  heard  from  my  husband  ?  "  said 
Mabel,  "  have  any  more  people  been  brought  in  ? 
are  there  any bodies  ?  " 

"  Bodies  ?  Dear  —  no,  no/'  said  Mrs.  Morrow ; 
"  do  not  be  troubled  about  the  others  ;  there  are 
plenty  of  people  to  take  care  of  them,  and  they 


60  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS  TEN. 

with  their  own  boats  too.  Do  not  think  about 
them,  dear,  and  do  not  cry  ;  let  me  bring  you  a 
cup  of  tea,  and  then  you  shall  have  your  clothes 
and  dress  yourself.  The  men  will  be  back  to 
supper,  and  we  shall  know  all  the  news." 

"  But  tell  me,"  said  Mabel,  "  tell  me  where  I 
am,  and  where  I  can  write  to  ?  What  must 
I  do  ?  I  never  was  alone  before.  I  never  had 
to  do  any  thing  before  —  like  —  like  this,  you 
know." 

"  Like  what,  my  dear  lady  ?  —  like  taking  a 
cup  of  tea  —  or  like  dressing  yourself?"  And 
Mrs.  Morrow  would  not  stop  for  an  answer. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  dry  common-sense  in 
Mrs.  Morrow,  who,  after  sixty  years  of  emigra 
tion,  of  a  new  home,  of  birth,  life,  and  death,  of 
joy  and  of  sorrow,  was  no  longer  a  fool.  She 
was,  therefore,  without  knowing  it,  a  philoso 
pher.  "  Come,  Amandy-Ann,"  she  cried,  bust 
ling  back  into  the  kitchen  sitting-room,  "  come, 
Amandy-Ann,  where  are  you  ?  Here's  the  Eng 
lish  lady  awake  again,  and  nigh  faint  for  her 
tea." 

"  How  did  she  know  that  I  was  an  English 
woman  ? "  said  Mabel  to  herself.  She  forgot 


TEN   TIMES   A    HUNDRED.  61 

that  if  Mrs.  Morrow  had  turned  up  at  the  Swaff- 
ham  station  in  Norfolk  near  her  father's  house, 
and  had  asked  her,  Mabel,  the  way  to  Cockley, 
she  would  have  known  that  Mrs.  Morrow  was 
an  American,  though  she  only  spoke  ten  words. 
"  I  must  get  up  and  do  something,"  said  Mabel 
to  herself  again  ;  "but  how  can  I  get  up  till  they 
bring  me  my  clothes  ?  " 

So  they  succeeded  in  keeping  her  prisoner  for 
a  long  hour,  while  she  "  worried  down  "  the  tea, 
and  ate  a  slice  of  toast,  and  tried  to  eat  a  slice 
of  corn-bread,  which  was  new  to  her,  and  broke 
an  egg,  as  Mrs.  Morrow  had  never  seen  an  egg 
broken  before.  When  she  had  pretended  to  eat 
a  part  of  the  egg,  Mrs.  Morrow  relented  so  far 
as  to  let  Amanda  Ann  bring  in  some  dry  cloth 
ing,  and  so  to  emancipate  Mabel  from  her 
prison. 

The  men  came  home.  An  early  tea  was  served 
—  a  meal  such  as  Mabel  never  saw  before.  The 
men  were  cheery,  though  with  no  grounds  intel 
ligible  for  cheeriness.  But  they  explained  that 
there  were  schooners  which  had  run  by  Huron, 
and  a  certain  brig  which  was  known  to  be  beat 
ing  up  to  St.  Clair,  and  two  freight  boats  and  a 


62  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

flat  which  were  bound  down  the  lake,  and  much 
more  than  poor  Mabel  could  understand,  any  of 
which  alone  could  have  rescued  all  the  Deer- 
hound's  people,  if,  as  no  man  permitted  himself 
to  doubt,  they  were  all  in  their  quarter  boats. 
Indeed,  they  could  rescue  themselves.  How 
many  hundreds  of  thousands  this  cheerful  fleet 
might  rescue  if  it  were  combined  in  one,  Mabel 
was  too  downcast  to  inquire. 

Poor  girl !  she  put  this  and  that  together  so 
far  as  to  make  out  that  we,  far  away  in  No.  9, 
in  Maine,  were  the  only  people  in  America  near 
enough  to  her  for  her  to  confer  with,  and  she 
asked  Elnathan  Morrow  eagerly  if  he  could 
not  send  a  telegram  to  us  from  her.  Of  course 
he  could.  He  would  "  hitch  up  "  at  once  and 
drive  over  to  Elyria  and  leave  the  despatch,  so  it 
should  go  the  first  thing  in  the  morning.  So 
Mabel  wrote :  — 

I  am  safe.  But  I  do  not  know  if  Horace  is.  We 
were  in  the  Deerhound. 

MABEL  DALRTMPLE. 
To  Frederic  Ingham, 

No.  9,  in  the  Third  Range,  Maine. 
By  Skowhegan. 


TEN  TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  63 

Mabel  knew  enough  to  know  that  a  telegram 
must  be  short.  But  she  was  not  much  used  to 
money  yet,  poor  girl,  and  she  did  not  know  that 
as  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Co.  coins  it, 
that  despatch  cost  Elnathan  every  cent  of  ready 
money  he  had  laid  up  to  pay  his  taxes  witri  the 
next  week.  But  if  he  had  not  had  the  money, 
Mrs.  Morrow  would  have  sent  her  three  tea 
spoons  to  the  watch-maker  at  Elyria  rather 
than  have  that  message  delayed.  Elnathan  rose 
from  table  before  the  rest  of  them,  harnessed 
up,  drove  to  Elyria,  and  the  next  morning  the 
Elyria  "  Democrat "  announced  that  it  stopped 
the  press  to  say  that  four  more  persons  had  been 
rescued  from  the  conflagration,  a  young  English 
lady,  and  her  companion,  the  mother  of  two 
children,  who  were  with  her  ;  and  that  "  all  these 
persons  were  now  resting  at  the  mansion-house 
of  our  estimable  fellow-citizen,  Elnathan  Mor 
row,  Esq.,  who  has  favored  us  with  this  infor 
mation." 

After  Elnathan  had  left,  poor  Mabel  did  her 
very  best  not  to  be  unsociable.  Her  companion 
on  the  wreck  was  still  sleeping  off  the  strain,  in. 
the  same  bed  with  her  two  children. 


64  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS   TEN. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Mabel,  "  that  the  first 
thing  I  saw,  when  I  opened  my  eyes,  was  the 
face  of  a  friend  ?  At  least  I  call  him  a  friend." 

"  Friend  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Morrow,  troubled  for  a 
moment  with  the  fear  that  the  pretty  English 
girl  was  wandering.  "  Who  did  you  see  ?  " 

"  Oh !  "  said  Mabel,  "  I  only  meant  I  saw  his 
picture — Mr.  Wadsworthrs  picture." 

"  Did  you  know  Harry  Wadsworth  ?  "  cried 
the  old  lady,  and  every  one  else  at  the  table  said 
in  the  same  instant,  substantially  the  same  thing. 

Mabel  explained  that  she  had  never  seen  him 
herself,  and  at  once,  an  air  of  disappointment 
showed  that  no  one  else  at  the  table  had  ever 
seen  him.  But  Mabel  said  to  the  youngest  girl 
that  if  she  would  bring  the  little  travelling-bag 
which  had  hung  at  her  side  all  through  the  night, 
she  would  show  her  something.  So  the  bag  was 
brought  from  behind  the  stove,  and  Mabel  found 
that  the  key  still  turned  in  the  rusted  lock.  She 
pulled  out  a  wet  handkerchief,  rusty  scissors,  the 
sloppy,  stained  bit  of  canvass  work  that  she  had 
been  stitching  on  the  afternoon  before  —  was  it 
yesterday  afternoon  or  was  it  not  sometime  in 
the  last  century?  —  and  down  at  the  bottom  she 


TEN    TIMES   A    HUNDRED.  65 

came  to  a  mother-of-pearl  card-case,  which  had 
stood  the  whole,  undiluted.  Mabel  wiped  it  dry, 
opened  it,  looked  a  moment  at  another  picture 
which  was  not  stained  nor  even  wet,  and  from 
behind  that  picture  pulled  out  her  picture  of 
Harry  Wadsworth.  It  was  the  last  thing  that  I 
gave  her,  except  my  blessing,  when  she  left  us  at 
No.  9. 

And  then  she  explained,  and  they  explained. 
None  of  them  had  ever  seen  Harry  in  the  flesh. 
But  here  was  Mabel  who  had  seen  me,  who  had 
seen  him,  and  she  had  seen  letters  that  he  wrote, 
and  if  her  trunk  were  ever  found,  in  her  port 
folio  she  had  a  note  of  his  that  I  had  given  her. 
And  they  —  they  knew  about  him.  Mrs.  Elna- 
than  Morrow  —  the  pale,  thin,  pretty  young 
woman,  the  mother  of  the  baby,  the  one  that 
had  said  so  little,  but  had  been  frying  the  cakes 
all  supper-time,  —  she  came  from  Ethan,  in  Ver 
mont.  Her  brother  Samuel  was  one  of  the  Will 
Morton  Base  Ball  Club  ;  and  she  had  first  met 
Elnathan,  if  she  would  have  told  the  truth,  at  a 
reading  club  at  Ethan,  where  Will  Morton  read 
"  Monte  Cristo "  and  "  Lady  Geraldine  "  to 
them.  And  her  pale  face  flushed  at  last,  and 
5 


66  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS   TEN. 

her  silence  thawed,  and  she  did  leave  the  grid 
dle  at  last  and  came  and  sat  at  the  corner  of 
the  table,  as  she  warmed  up  to  tell  how  Will 
Morton  laid  down  the  book  one  night,  and 
talked  to  them  all  about  Harry.  And  of  course 
she  told  many  stories  of  him,  which  I  cannot 
repeat  here ;  and  then  Mabel  got  to  telling  some 
stories  that  I  had  told  her.  And  Celia  felt  as  if 
Mabel  and  she  were  old  friends,  and  told  her 
more  about  Will  Morton,  and  about  their  life  in 
Ethan,  and  about  the  Base  Ball  Club,  and  about 
her  brother  Sam,  who  had  gone  to  Minnesota. 
She  told  about  her  own  marriage,  and  how 
strange  it  seemed  to  her  to  come  out  here ; 
and  Mabel  learned  that  between  Ethan  in 
Vermont,  and  the  southern  shore  of  Lake 
Erie,  there  was  as  much  difference  as  between 
Cockley  in  Norfolk  and  Ethan  in  Vermont; 
she  learned  that  she  was  not  the  only  girl  that 
had  left  her  father's  house  to  find  a  strange,  very 
strange  home,  tf  Harry  Wadsworth  had  never 
done  any  thing  else,  he  had  made  sisters  of 
those  two  women.  So  they  all  talked  and  talked. 
Just  after  the  June  sunset  the  youngest  children 
slipped  in  with  two  great  bowls  of  beautiful 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  67 

strawberries,  and  Mabel  ate  from  these  as  she 
talked,  almost  unconsciously.  The  fire  in  the 
stove  went  down,  the  griddle-cakes  grew  cold, 
and  it  was  dark  when  their  long  croon  was  inter 
rupted,  as  Mrs.  Palmer,  Mary's  companion  in  mis 
fortune,  opened  the  kitchen  door  and  came  in. 


Horace  ?  He  had  been  knocked  on  the  head, 
as  he  was  at  work  on  the  forward  deck,  very 
early  in  the  business.  Some  one  in  the  pilot's 
box  hove  an  axe  forward  to  the  mate,  who  had 
called  for  it.  Horace  was  stepping  across  hastily, 
the  axe  struck  him  in  the  forehead,  knocked  him 
down,  and  he  lay  there  senseless.  The  water, 
leaking  from  the  hose  that  they  were  working 
with,  dribbled  down  on  his  face  sometimes,  but 
nobody  could  stop  to  nurse  him. 

But  when  the  game  was  played  through, 
when  the  last  quarter  boat  hauled  up  under  the 
bow  of  the  Deerhound,  and  the  mate  for  the  last 
time  came  on  board,  and  said  to  the  captain, 
"  You  must  come  now,  sir,  there  is  not  a  living 
cat  on  the  vessel,"  the  captain  pointed  to  Horace 
as  he  lay  there,  and  said,  "  Silas,  we  will  heave 
him  down,  too.  Perhaps  there's  life  in  him. 


68  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

Whether  there  is  or  not,  it  shan't  be  said  that 
the  only  two  English  people  in  the  boat  went  to 
the  bottom.  Handsome  fellow  he  is!  "  And  the 
captain  took  Horace  by  the  shoulders,  and  Silas 
took  him  under  his  hips  and  carried  the  senseless 
body  to  the  opening  in  the  rail ;  they  called  two 
firemen  who  stood  on  the  thwarts  and  handed  it 
down,  and  laid  it  along  as  best  they  could,  on 
the  after  thwart  and  in  the  hollow  behind  it. 
Then  the  boat-hooks  shoved  her  off,  and  the  boat 
followed  the  others. 

"Them  women,"  said  Silas,  meditatively, 
"  must  have  stifled  in  ten  minutes  after  he  sent 
them  there.  What  on  airth  made  him  tell  them 
to  go  into  the  ladies'  saloon  ?  " 

Horace  was  not  killed.  Else  these  pages  were 
not  here.  The  captain  never  believed  he  was 
killed.  As  soon  as  the  men  gave  way  at  the 
oars,  and  the  boat  was  well  off  the  wreck,  the 
captain  cut  off  the  waist  buttons  of  Horace's 
clothes,  laid  bare  his  breast,  untied  his  neck-cloth, 
and  again  and  again  flung  water  in  his  face,  as 
he  lay  in  the  arms  of  that  good-natured  German, 
who  was  wondering,  perhaps,  if  this  were  the 
usual  mode  of  travel  in  America.  In  fifteen 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  69 

minutes  the  muscular,  full-blooded  young  Eng 
lishman  opened  his  eyes ;  in  three  more  he  was 
wondering;  then  he  shook  himself  free,  sat  up, 
put  his  hand  to  his  head,  looked  round,  and 
began  to  ask  questions. 

The  burning  Deerhound  could  still  be  seen,  and 
in  reply  the  captain  pointed  her  out  to  him  far 
astern.  Then  how  boldly  the  captain  lied,  as 
the  poor  wretch  asked  after  Mabel !  You  would 
have  thought  Mabel  was  in  a  Lord  Mayor's 
barge  upon  the  Cydnus,  lying  upon  cushions, 
fanned  by  Cupids  and  rowed  by  Naiads,  so 
emphatic  were  the  captain's  assurances  of  her 
comfort  and  safety,  —  assurances  which  Horace 
was  just  stupid  enough,  with  the  blow,  to  believe. 
He  grew  faint  again  with  his  effort,  needed  a 
little  of  the  Jamaica  the  captain  gave  him,  and 
sank  back,  with  his  eyes  blurred  and  his  head 
spinning,- on  the  German's  shoulder. 

Then  it  was  that  the  second  botch  was  made 
in  the  proceedings  of  that  night.  The  boats 
Were  all  pulling  for  Huron,  against  a  heavy 
western  breeze  which  was  freshening  into  a  gale. 
The  captain's  boat  was  the  last  of  the  little 
squadron,  which  was  pulling  in  order  —  it  must 


70  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

be  near  twenty  miles — that  they  might  not  risk 
the  beaching  business  with  that  heavy  sea  on. 
By  daybreak  the  others  were  all  safe,  and  were 
telegraphed  as  safe  all  over  the  country,  while 
the  same  telegram  reported  that  the  captain's 
boat  was  not  heard  from,  and  that  two  women 
and  two  children,  and  an  Englishman,  name  not 
known,  had  gone  down  in  the  Deerliound.  This 
botch  all  resulted,  because,  as  the  captain's  boat 
slowly  followed  the  others,  they  crossed  the  line 
of  the  little  Canadian  brig  which  was  beating 
across  the  lake  back  and  forth,  working  her  way 
home  from  Buffalo  to  Amherstburg.  It  was  a 
natural  thing,  of  course,  to  answer  her  friendly 
hail,  a  very  natural  thing  to  run  alongside,  a 
natural  thing  to  take  the  line  her  skipper  threw, 
a  natural  thing  to  go  on  board,  all  of  them,  and 
to  take  the  boat  in  tow.  Then  as  towards  morn 
ing  the  gale  did  freshen,  and  they  had  to  stay  on 
board,  it  was  natural  to  stay.  But  because  of 
all  this,  so  natural  at  every  step,  when  in  the  fog 
of  the  next  day  she  went  ashore  and  bilged  on 
Pelee  Island,  and  they  all  crawled  to  land  in  wet 
jackets,  that  was  a  pity.  That  was  the  reason 
that  for  four  days  Horace  thought  his  wife  was 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  71 

in  heaven  ;  and  that  for  three  of  those  same  four 
days  she  was  more  and  more  sure  he  was  there. 
But  Horace  also  fitted  off  his  telegram  to  No. 
9,  in  the  Third  Range.  And  his  telegram  worked 
through  rather  faster  than  hers,  though  it  started 
later.  The  two  arrived  at  Skowhegan  the  same 
night.  And  one  express  messenger  was  started 
for  No.  9  in  the  morning  with  the  two.  The 
weak-minded  brother  neglected  to  bring  any 
newspaper  with  him,  so  that  all  that  Polly  and  I 
knew  was  in  these  words :  — 

We  were  in  the  Deerhound.  Mabel  is  lost.  Ad 
dress  Detroit.  HORACE  DALRYMPLE. 

And  in  these,  as  above, — 

I  am  safe.  But  I  do  not  know  if  Horace  is.  We 
were  in  the  Deerlwund.  MABEL  DALRYMPLE. 

What  the  Deerhound  was  or  where  they  were, 
we  did  not  know.  But  Mabel's  despatch  was 
dated  Elyria  and  Horace's  was  dated  London, 
C.  W. ;  and  we  knew  that  C.  W.  did  not  mean 
West  Centre  of  the  real  London,  but  Canada 
West  of  the  —  new  one. 

Poor  souls!  Lake  Erie  was  between  them, — 
and  neither  knew  if  the  other  were  alive. 


72  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

We  gave  the  boy  his  supper,  fed  his  horse 
well,  admonished  him  to  bring  a  newspaper 
another  time,  and  started  him  back  with  the 
return  despatches :  — 

Your  husband  is  well.     Address  him  at  Detroit. 

F.  INGHAM. 

Your  wife  is  well.     Find  her  at  Elyria. 

F.  INGHAM. 

And  with  hopes  that  they  would  not  go  Evan- 
gelining  and  Gabrielling  it  all  over  the  Western 
country  till  they  died,  we  went  to  bed,  still 
wishing  the  boy  had  brought  a  newspaper, 
and  wondering  what  had  happened  to  the 
Deerhound. 

Mabel  got  that  despatch  the  third  night,  so 
she  slept  comfortably  and  happy.  Two  days 
still  it  was  before  she  had  any  thing  but  the 
telegram  to  live  upon ;  but  the  telegram  was 
(enough,  and  good  Mrs.  Morrow's  chicken  fixings 
and  strawberries  and  "  young  Hyson  "  all  helped 
a  little.  And  they  fitted  off  poor  Mrs.  Palmer, 
and  little  Alice  and  "  baby,"  for  Philadelphia. 
She  thought  she  might  as  well  go  to  Philadelphia 
as  anywhere.  And  at  last,  five  days,  I  believe, 
after  the  night  of  horrors,  Horace  came  up  be- 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  73 

hind  Mabel,  as  she  sat  in  the  piazza  with  Celia's 
baby  in  her  arms,  put  his  brown  hands  on  her 
two  cool  cheeks,  bent  over  and  kissed  her,  upside 
down  !  And  Mabel  did  not  faint  away ! 

The  next  morning  Dalrymple  wrote  to  me  at 
considerable  length,  giving  some  hint  of  the 
stoiy  I  have  been  telling,  and  of  his  plans  for 
refitting  himself  and  his  wife.  Here  is  the  end 
of  the  letter:  — 

"  While  all  this  goes  forward  we  shall  stay 
here,  knowing  where  we  are  well  off.  Poor 
Mabel  really  is  at  home  here  with  these  nice 
people,  who  are  just  what  you  would  call  clever 
—  as  kind  as  they  can  be.  Do  you  know,  as 
soon  as  she  opened  her  eyes,  she  saw  Wads- 
worth's  picture,  and  it  proved  that  the  waves  had 
flung  her  upon  one  more  of  what  she  calls  the 
Harry  Wadsworth  homes.  And  I,  —  before  this 
poor  skipper  I  tell  you  of  and  I  had  talked  five 
minutes  on  the  logs  there  on  Pelee  Island,  watch 
ing  his  little  vessel  as  she  ground  to  pieces,  I 
found  he  was  one  of  Wadsworth's  men !  What 
do  you  think  of  that?  He  was  a  rough  cus 
tomer,  but  when  I  said  something  sympathetic 


74  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS  TEN. 

about  the  loss  of  the  vessel,  he  answered  as 
cheerfully  as  a  bird,  evidently  knowing  that  it 
was  all  right.  I  told  him  he  was  a  philosopher, 
'  No,'  he  said,  very  simply,  handing  me  back  mr 
pipe  from  which  he  was  lighting  his,  'it  is  not 
my  philosophy,  it  is  my  religion.  But  I  don't 
like  to  call  it  so.  Our  notion  is  that  a  man  had 
better  not  talk  much  about  his  religion,  certainly 
had  better  not  think  at  all  about  saving  his  soul. 
We  think  he'd  better  do  what  he  can  to  save 
other  people's  souls,  or  if  he  isn't  strong  that 
way,  save  their  bodies,  or  keep  them  from  the 
devil,  some  way ;  and  forget  he  has  any  soul 
himself,  if  he  can't  do  better.' 

"  Only  think,  Ingham,  of  my  hearing  sucti 
words  of  wisdom  out  on  a  fresh-water  beach, 
that  did  not  know  enough  to  have  the  tide  rise. 
'  Who  do  you  mean  by  "  we  "  ? '  I  said.  <  Oh/ 
said  he,  a  little  nervously  this  time,  '  a  little  set 
of  us,  who  don't  care  to  make  any  noise  about 
our  club ;  we  call  ourselves  Harry  Wadsworth's 
men.' 

"Ingham,  I  started  as  if  I  had  been  shot. 
Then  I  was  afraid  for  a  minute  I  was  not  right 
in  my  head,  after  this  dig  the  axe  had  given  rne. 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  75 

But  it  was  quite  clear  that  the  man  and  the  lake 
and  the  logs  were  there,  and  I  questioned  him 
further.  He  made  no  secret  of  it ;  there  were 
thirty  or  forty  of  them  who  had  arranged  to  get 
together  sometimes,  in  Detroit,  to  help  each  other 
as  well  as  they  could,  in  their  charities,  which 
he  represented  as  mere  nothings,  but  which  I 
found  afterwards  were  what  the  world's  people 
would  make  quite  a  fuss  about,  mostly  among 
emigrants  and  sailors.  This  man,  Woodberry, 
said,  as  simply  as  he  said  every  thing  else,  that  it 
was  the  only  way  he  had  ever  experienced  religion ; 
that  his  father  and  mother  were  religious  people, 
and  he  had  a  brother  who  was  a  Baptist  minis 
ter;  but  that  he  did  not  make  much  of  their 
notions  or  their  way,  but  that  these  Wadsworth 
people  pulled  him  through  a  hard  turn  once  when 
they  found  him  sick  in  a  sailor  boarding-house, 
and  he  had  found  since  that  their  religion  proved 
a  very  good  religion  for  him. 

"  When  we  passed  through  Detroit,  he  took 
me  round  to  one  of  their  meetings.  It  had  some 
of  the  fuss  and  form  that  you  and  I  have  seen 
at  lodge,  and  division,  and  communication  meet 
ings  all  the  world  over ;  but  it  had  a  perfectly 


76  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

healthy  tone,  was  true  as  truth,  and  tremendous 
ly  energetic.  There  was  no  vow  of  secrecy,  but 
great  unwillingness  to  get  into  the  newspaper. 
When  I  showed  my  picture  of  Wadsworth,  I 
became  quite  a  hero.  They  were  glad  to  hear 
of  the  founder  of  their  club  from  one  side  more. 
Remember  that,  till  that  moment,  I  was  in  the 
clothes  I  swam  ashore  in.  What  should  you 
say  if  I  told  you  that  it  was  the  President  of 
the  Harry  Wadsworth  Club  who  introduced  me 
to  the  Detroit  banker  who  honored  the  draft  on 
New  York,  in  which  I  am  at  this  moment 
dressed,  and  with  which  I  am  shod  and  hatted. 
So  much  for  the  photograph. 

"  They  have  told  me  of  three  or  four  other 
clubs  somewhat  like  their  own.  But  I  do  not 
think  there  is  any  effort  made  to  form  clubs.  It 
is  rather  an  accident  as  people  drift  together.  I 
found  they  knew  all  your  story  of  the  meeting 
at  the  funeral,  what  you  call  '  Ten  times  one  is 
ten.'  Some  of  them  were  friends  of  Morton's, 
some  of  them  had  known  Professor  Widdifield's 
scholars.  They  had  a  printed  list  of  the  '  origi 
nal  ten,'  as  they  called  them.  I  showed  them 
Mrs.  Ingham's  calendar  of  the  one  hundred  and 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED.  77 

one  people  who  had  had  their  lives  lifted  up,  and 
made  less  selfish  in  their  different  ways,  as  that 
man's  central  influence  extended.  That  pleased 
them;  they  had  not,  for  instance,  known  any 
thing  about  the  Kermadeck  Islands,  nor  what 
had  become  of  you  or  Mrs.  Emerson.  I  showed 
them  Mrs.  Emerson's  letter  to  me,  and  told  them 
about  my  visit  to  Mrs.  Merriam.  And  then  one 
of  the  statistical  brethren  proposed  a  count, 
whereat  a  more  godly  brother  quoted  Scripture 
and  explained  about  David's  census.  None  the 
less  did  they  count  up  the  people  they  knew  and 
I  knew  who  this  day  count  Harry  Wadsworth 
as  personal  friend,  personal  comforter,  adviser, 
and  help  to  them.  Ingham,  there  were  one 
thousand  and  twenty-three ! 

"  I  will  write  you  again  before  we  leave  here. 
The  house  has  but  three  rooms,  but  they  make 
us  very  comfortable.  Mabel  needs  rest,  and  has 
to  get  clothed  again. 

"  Truly  yours,  H.  D." 

I  read  that  letter  to  Polly,  and  she  said,  "  Ten 
times  a  hundred  is  a  thousand.  It  was  only  six 
years  ago." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TEN  TIMES  A  THOUSAND. 

HPHE  Harry  Wads  worth  Club,  which  first  met 
in  the  North  Colchester  station,  had  enlarged 
itself,  in  six  years,  without  knowing  it,  —  and 
without  trying  to  enlarge,  —  to  a  thousand  mem 
bers.  They  did  not  know  each  other's  names,  - 
and  there  were  not  many  of  them  who  cared  to. 
They  had  a  great  many  different  constitutions. 
Some  were  clubs  for  singing,  some  were  sewing- 
schools,  some  were  base  ball  clubs ;  and  this 
rather  formal  one  at  Detroit,  upon  which,  by  good 
luck,  Horace  Dalrymple  had  stumbled,  had  offi 
cers,  —  a  president,  secretary  and  records,  and  all 
that.  All  you  could  say  of  these  thousand  people 
was  that,  in  six  years,  the  life  of  that  young  rail 
road  freight-agent  had  quickened  their  lives,  had 
made  them  less  selfish,  and  less  worldly.  They 
lived  more  for  each  other  and  for  God,  because 


TEN   TIMES   A   THOUSAND.  79' 

he  had  lived,  and  they  knew  that  he  had  ren 
dered  them  this  service.  They  showed  their 
knowledge  of  it  in  different  ways,  or  some  of  them 
perhaps  did  not  speak  of  it  at  all.  Some  of  the 
younger  and  more  demonstrative  ones  had  secret 
breast-pins  with  H.  W.  in  a  cypher  on  them. 
Some  of  the  others,  like  the  Morrows,  had  Har 
ry's  picture  framed  and  hanging  on  the  wall. 
Some  of  them,  like  'me,  carried  it  in  their  hearts, 
and  needed  no  bit  of  paper. 

But  as  I  say,  in  six  years  the  ten  had  multi 
plied  to  a  thousand  by  as  simple  a  process  as 
this,  — 

10  X  10  =  100.     100  X  10  =  1000. 

And,  at  this  fascinating  point,  alas !  I  must 
leave  the  detail  of  the  story.  Indeed,  as  you  see, 
I  have  had  to  leave  it  already.  Of  these  thousand 
lives,  I  have  told  the  story  of  only  four  or  five, 
and  only  a  very  little  part  of  that.  If  anybody 
should  tell  the  story,  it  would  be  Horace  Dal- 
rymple,  who  with  his  pretty  Mabel  travelled  up 
and  down  America,  backwards  and  forwards, 
as  the  Harry  Wadsworth  people  advised  him, 
sent  him,  or  invited  him,  for  three  years  and 
more,  after  that  horrible  night  on  the  Deerhound. 


80  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

They  saw  a  great  deal  of  beautiful  scenery,  and 
I  dare  say  they  "  were  shown  "  —  as  the  penny- 
a-liners  love  to  say  —  a  great  many  "  institu 
tions."  They  came  out  in  the  South  Park  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains ;  and  they  went  to  the 
Middle  Park  and  to  the  North  Park.  I  do  not 
know  where  they  did  not  go.  But  they  did  not 
travel  to  see  "  institutions."  They  did  not,  in  the 
first  instance,  go  to  hunt,  or  to  fish,  or  to  make 
sketches.  They  went  where  one  of  Harry  Wads- 
worth's  men  sent  them  to  another.  They  went 
from  prince  to  peasant,  —  you  would  say, —  only 
there  is  never  a  peasant  nor  a  prince  west  of  the 
Atlantic,  nor  east  of  the  Pacific.  They  went 
from  cabin  to  palace,  and  from  palace  to  cabin 
So  they  saw  what  so  few  travellers  see,  —  the 
home  life  of  the  people  here. 

These  persons  they  visited  did  not  sit  in 
groups,  with  their  best  clothes  on,  talking  about 
Harry  Wadsworth.  Not  they!  A  great  many 
of  them  did  not  speak  his  name  in  a  year,  may 
be  did  not  think  of  him  for  a  month.  "  It  was 
not  that,"  said  pretty  Mabel  to  me,  when  she 
was  fresh  from  this  Sinbad  life,  —  "  the  freema 
sonry  of  it  was  that  you  found  everywhere  a 


TEN   TIMES   A   THOUSAND.  81 

cheerful  out-look,  a  perfect  determination  to 
relieve  suffering,  and  a  certainty  that  it  could 
be  relieved,  —  a  sort  of  sweetness  of  disposition, 
which  comes,  I  think,  from  the  habit  of  looking', 
across  the  line,  as  if  death  were  little  or  nothing; 
and  with  that,  perhaps,  a  disposition  to  be  social, 
to  meet  people  more  than  half  way." 

Thus  spoke  the  little  Englishwoman  ;  and  I,, 
in  my  analytical  way,  used  to  the  inevitable 
three  heads  of  the  sermon,  said  to  myself,  — 
"  Humph,  that  is  Mabel's  translation  of  faith, 
hope,  and  love." 

Horace  and  Mabel,  after  their  three  years' 
journey,  had  found  us  living  in  South  Boston. 
We  were  sitting  after  dinner  one  day  on  the 
wood-shed  behind  the  house,  which  served  us  as 
a  piazza,  when  Horace  laid  down  his  pipe,  and 
asked  me  if  I  remembered  explaining  to  him 
the  way  in  which  people  dispersed  over  the 
United  States,  —  so  that  the  census  shows  that 
each  State  is  made  up  from  the  children  of  all. 
I  had  forgotten  it,  but  he  recalled  it  to  me. 

"  That  was  what  first  set  me  on  this  journey," 
said  he,  "  which  has  carried  us  so  far.  Now  the 
queer  thing  about  it  is,  that  it  is  no  special  law 
6 


82  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

of  your  country,  this  dispersion  and  radiation ;  it 
is  a  law  of  all  modem  civilization." 

"  Of  course  it  is,"  said  I. 

"  Of  course  it  is,"  said  he.  "  Here  is  this  Con 
necticut  pinmaker."  And  he  took  out  from  his 
pocket-book  a  bit  of  green  paper,  evidently  torn 
from  a  paper  of  pins,  on  which  the  man  said 
that  he  was  "  pinmaker  for  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  for  exportation  to  all  parts  of 
the  world."  "  Now,  that,"  said  Horace,  "  is  what 
you  call  a  piece  of  buncombe ;  but,  for  all  that, 
it  is  true.  The  old  statement  is  true,  that  if  you 
import  into  Russia  a  bottle  of  champagne  or  a 
piece  of  broadcloth,  you  import  liberal  ideas 
there  as  truly  as  if  you  imported  Tom  Paine. 
Commerce  is  no  missionary  to  carry  more  or 
better  than  you  have  at  home.  But  what  you 
have  at  home,  be  it  gospel  or  be  it  drunkenness, 
commerce  carries  the  world  over.  As  what's- 
his-name  said,  the  walking-beam  of  Livingstone  s 
steam-launch  preached  as  well  as  Livingstone, 
and  a  good  many  more  people  heard  it." 

"  It  would  not  have  said  much  if  Livingstone 
had  not  been  there,"  said  I,  a  little  crustily. 

"  Don't  be  sore,  padre,"  said  Horace.     "  No- 


TEN   TIMES   A   THOUSAND.  83 

oody  said  it  would.  But  you  see  Livingstone 
was  there.  That  is  just  what  I  am  saying.  And 
there  are  Livingstones  all  over  this  world,  who 
are  not  acquainted  with  the  Royal  Geographical 
Society.  As  we  came  on  from  New  York  last 
night,  after  Mabel  turned  in,  I  got  out  this  note 
book,  and  I  added  up  the  number  of  men  and 
women  who  belong  to  these  different  Wadsworth 
clubs,  who  have  travelled  or  settled  in  different 
parts  of  this  world.  Just  look  at  them." 

Sure  enough  I  found  Horace,  —  who  was 
always  a  better  acting  adjutant  than  he  was  any 
thing  else,  —  true  to  his  nature,  had  entered  in 
close  columns,  forty  lines  to  a  page,  the  people 
that  any  of  the  Harry  Wadsworth  people  re 
garded  as  being  really  in  earnest  in  relieving  the 
suffering  of  the  world,  and  getting  the  world  out 
of  the  mud.  "  There's  a  sort  of  law  of  average 
about  it,"  said  Harry.  "  Every  now  arid  then 
a  member  dies.  Then  I  make  a  red  star,  —  so, 
against  him.  But,  on  the  average,  you  find  that 
every  working  man,  or  especially  every  working 
woman  in  one  of  these  lodges,  or  clubs,  or  sing 
ing-schools,  is  represented  at  the  end  of  three 
years'  time  by  ten  persons  whom  he  has  started 


84  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

on  a  better  kind  of  life  than  he  was  leading 
before.  When  I  was  with  these  people  at  De 
troit,  after  I  got  my  head  knocked  open,  we 
counted  up  a  little  more  than  a  thousand,  of 
what  they  called,  in  their  stately  way,  '  affiliated 
members.'  Your  wife,  here,  was  one  of  thtir 
(  affiliated  members.'  But  I  have  got  here,  no\\, 
—  in  three  years'  more  time,  —  see  here,"  —  and 
he  turned  over  page  after  page  of  his  crowded 
note-book.  At  the  end  was  a  rough  count  — 
10,140.  "  That  is  what  three  years  have  made 
of  one  thousand  and  twenty-three,  so  far  as  we 
know.  Of  course,  a  great  many  of  them  are 
wholly  out  of  our  sight." 

Little  Pauline,  who  is  an  enthusiast  about 
Harry  Wadsworth,  though  she  never  saw  him, 
clapped  her  hands  with  delight,  as  Horace  said 
this,  and  cried  out,  "  TEN  TIMES  ONE  THOUSAND 

IS   TEN   THOUSAND." 

"Do  you  learn  that  at  the  Lincoln  School?" 
said  Horace,  with  approval.  "  I  shall  have  to 
put  you  on  my  register,  I  believe.  But  what  I 
was  saying,  Ingham,  is  this :  Here  are  underlined 
with  blue  all  the  seafaring  men  in  this  list.  See 
how  many.  With  red  are  all  the  Englishmen, 


TEN   TIMES   A   THOUSAND.  85 

Scotchmen,  Germans,  and  the  rest,  whose  homes 
are  likely  to  be  in  any  part  of  Europe,  —  see 
here,  and  here.  With  green  are  marked  the 
Asiatics:  people  at  Calcutta,  —  there's  a  man  at 
Singapore,  —  all  these  are  Japanese  men.  And 
these,  underscored  with  black,  —  there  are  fifty- 
one  even  of  them,  —  are  in  Africa;  you  would 
say  it  was  impossible.  But  what  with  Algiers, 
Alexandria,  Zanzibar,  the  Cape,  and  a  good 
many  men  and  women  who  went  to  Liberia, 
Harry  Wadsworth  and  his  loving  life  are  rep 
resented,  so  far  as  that,  in  Africa." 

Then  Horace  went  on  to  say,  that  for  himself 
his  travelling  was  over.  The  people  at  home 
were  wild  to  see  Mabel  and  her  baby.  The  child 
himself  was  weaned,  and  he  should  finally  "  set 
tle  down  "  with  the  two.  "  I  can  do  as  much  at 
home  in  renewing  this  world,  and  bringing  in 
the  kingdom,"  said  he,  "  as  if  the  Arapahoes  were 
scalping  me.  And  I  foresee  that  my  mission 
ground  is  Norfolk,  which  I  did  not  suspect  when 
you  and  I  were  in  Calabria.  What  I  have  to 
say  now  is  this,  that  in  Norfolk  I  shall  constitute 
myself  the  assistant  adjutant,  for  that  quarter 
of  the  world,  of  these  Wadsworth  people.  I 


86  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

mean  to  keep  up  the  list  of  these  whom  I  have 
marked  with  red.  If  I  write  one  letter  every 
morning  and  one  every  evening  to  them,  and 
four  every  Sunday,  I  can  write  in  three  years 
twenty-five  hundred  letters  to  one  part  of  Europe 
and  to  another.  I  mean  to  find  out,  before  three 
years  are  over,  what  the  radiating  influence  of 
one  Christian  life  is,  in  a  quarter  of  the  world 
which  the  man  never  saw  who  lived  that  life." 

We  were  talking  this  over,  when  we  met  the 
others  at  tea.  Mabel  was  full  of  it.  She  really 
knew  the  Coffins  who  had  gone  to  Sweden  and 
the  Wentworths  who  were  at  Dresden,  and  I 
know  not  how  many  more  she  meant  to  write 
letters  to,  and  get  information.  Mary  Throop 
was  taking  tea  with  us.  One  of  the  real  steady- 
going  people  she,  capable  of  immense  enthu 
siasm,  all  the  more,  because  she  never  shows  any, 
—  no,  though  you  put  her  on  the  rack  and  pull 
her  tendons  asunder,  —  the  approved  way  of 
awaking  enthusiasm.  She  looked  over  Dalryrn- 
ple's  book  with  approbation,  nodded  silently 
once  and  again,  understood  it  all  the  better 
because  no  one  explained  it  to  her,  smiled  her 
approval  as  she  gave  it  back,  and  said,  "  I  am 


TEN    TIMES   A   THOUSAND.  87 

going  to  get  a  book.  I  am  going  to  take 
Asia." 

"  Will  you  ?  "  cried  Horace,  exultant.  "  I  had 
not  supposed  anybody  else  would  care  any  thing 
about  doing  it.  But  if  you  only  will !  You 
&ee,  my  dear  Miss  Mary,  it  is  not  the  glorifying 
of  this  young  man,  that  is  the  last  thing  anybody 
wants  to  do.  It  is  that  any  life  as  noble  as  his 
and  as  pure  as  his  never  dies ;  and  that  his 
power  to  lift  up  the  world  is  always  going  on! " 

Yes:  Mary  Throop  saw  that  too.  She  had 
aot  enlisted  herself  for  any  work  of  mutual 
admiration.  She  wanted  to  register  the  real 
diffusive  power  of  right  and  truth  and  love  and 
life.  She  would  do  her  share. 

Horace  thought  a  moment  and  said,  "  If  you 
really  will  take  Asia,  I  know  who  will  take 
Africa.  Mabel,  do  you  not  remember  that  great 
black  man  on  the  railroad  from  Memphis  ?  Here 
is  his  name,  Fergus  Jamiesson.  He  will  take 
Africa.  He  had  been  up  the  Niger.  He  had  a 
passion  for  statistics.  And  I  have  his  card 
somewhere.  We  can  have  the  whole  world. 
For  there  is  nothing  the  Detroit  men  will  like 
better  than  to  keep  up  America.  I  will  write 


DO  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

to-night  to  Taylor  and  to  Wagner.     They  have 
the  statistical  passion  there  also." 

"  For  my  part,"  said  Polly,  "  I  detest  writing 
Jetters  to  people  I  never  saw.  I  believe  you 
men  like  it,  because  you  did  it  in  the  army,  — 
and  you  thought  King  Bomba  was  beaten  when 
you  had  emptied  a  pigeon-hole  by  putting  all 
the  papers  into  big  envelopes,  and  writing  on 
the  .  outside  c  Respectfully  referred  to  Major 
Pendennis.' 

"  For  my  part,"  continued  she,  "  I  had  rather 
the  children  should  spend  their  money  on  a  grab- 
bag  at  a  fair,  than  bring  me  home  a  parcel  of 
letters  from  the  fair  post-office,  that  were  written 
at  a  venture,  from  somebody  to  nobody,  to  be 
posted  nowhere,  because  they  were  good  for 
nothing." 

Mabel  laughed  and  said,  "  Amen,  amen.  Bat 
you  see,  dear  Polly,"  said  she,  "  or  you  shall 
see,  that  these  letters  of  ours  are  written  by 
somebody  of  flesh  and  blood,  to  somebody  of 
'blood  and  flesh,  with  something  in  them  and 
going  —  to  Sweden,  —  mine  are." 

"  Humph,"  said  Polly  incredulously,  "  they 
will  take  the  express  train  back  to  Weeden  sta- 


TEN   TIMES   A   THOUSAND.  89 

tion  when  they  get  there."  But  Mabel  only 
laughed  the  louder,  said  she  should  write  her 
first  letter  then  and  there ;  that  Mary  Throop 
should  write  hers  and  that  Horace  should  write 
his. 

"  And  Polly,"  said  I,  "  shall  pay  the  postage, 
out  of  our  rag-money." 

So  the  three  first  letters  in  this  gigantic  corre 
spondence  were  written  that  night  in  our  sitting- 
room  in  D  Street.  They  were  read,  criticised, 
postscripts  added,  and  then  forwarded;  and  so 
the  second  half  of  the  formation  of  the  Club 
began. 


CHAPTER   V. 

EUROPE,  ASIA,  AFRICA,  AND  THE  ISLES   OF  THE 
OCEAN. 

"VTES,  it  is  true  that  the  next  three  years  of  this 
history  become  a  little  less  determinate. 
There  is  less  of  that  "  realism,"  as  the  critics  call 
it,  — which  the  critics  so  much  dislike,  because  it 
makes  you  sure  that  what  you  read  is  true,  in 
stead  of  being  bookish,  and  in  general  improb 
able  or  unreal,  as  the  critics  think  all  truly  good 
writing  should  be.  You  see  it  was  on  the  24th 
of  March,  1870,  that  Dalrymple  and  his  pretty 
wife  left  our  house  to  take  the  City  of  Brussels  for 
Queenstown  and  Liverpool,  — and  from  that  day 
to  this  day  I  have  never  seen  their  faces  more. 
Also  Mary  Throop  has  never  been  in  D  Street 
again.  As  for  Fergus  Jamiesson,  I  never  saw 
him,  far  less  the  Detroit  corresponding  secreta 
ries.  What  I  am  now  to  tell,  therefore,  of  the 
three  years  between  1870  and  1873,  I  am  to 


EUROPE,    ASIA,    AFRICA,    ETC.  1)1 

compile  from  statistics,  files  of  letters,  and  the 
law  of  general  averages ;  and  it  will  have  much 
more  the  vague  air  of  ordinary  history,  therefore, 
than  the  truth  truly  told  ever  does,  —  from  which, 
as  you  know,  ordinary  history  is  indefinitely 
removed. 

Sparing  you  the  detail,  then,  in  which  pro 
phecy  and  history  fail  alike,  here  is  the  sum  of 
the  story.  Of  the  TEN  THOUSAND  Dalrymple  had 
the  names  of  I  know  not  how  many  hundreds 
of  men  and  women,  who  from  this  cosmopolitan 
country  of  ours  had  carried  Harry  Wads  worth's 
name  or  his  picture,  or  hi*s  printed  letters,  to  one 
or  another  part  of  Europe,  or  if  not  these,  had 
carried  the  spirit  of  his  life  there.  They  had 
what  the  Detroit  men  called  the  four  corner 
stones, —  and  in  Detroit  had  painted  on  four  slabs 
in  their  lodge-house  :  "  They  "  looked  up  and 
not  down,"  "  they  did  not  talk  of  themselves," 
"  they  always  lent  a  hand,"  and  "  they  were  not 
afraid  to  die."  Yes,  and  they  knew,  but  for 
Harry  Wadsworth,  they  would  have  thought 
more  of  themselves,  would  have  been  brooding 
and  regretting,  —  would  have  been  slower  to 
help,  —  and  would  have  clung  tighter  to  life. 


92  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

With  these  eight  hundred,  more  or  less,  men 
and  women,  Horace  and  Mabel  began  their  cor 
respondence  :  three  letters  a  day,  counting  hers, 
and  five  or  six  every  Sunday.  Well  for  them 
that  postage  was  coming  lower,  —  but  they  sold 
their  foreign  stamps  for  the  benefit  of  the  cause. 
That  was  an  economy  Mrs.  Haliburton  taught 
them. 

Well !  a  great  many  letters  never  were  an 
swered,  perhaps  a  third  part.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  it  proved  at  once  that  there  were  in  Europe 
already  many  more  of  the  apostles,  as  Dalrym- 
ple  began  to  call  them,  than  he  and  Mabel  had 
any  idea  of.  They  had  to  open  new  books,  with 
much  wider  margins,  and  much  more  space  be 
tween  the  lines.  Iron-men  had  not  been-  ironing 
in  Sweden  without  carrying  there  the  old  Cron- 
stadt  lore ;  railroad  men  did  not  go  to  Russia 
without  carrying  there  the  North  Colchester 
traditions ;  young  artists  did  not  paint  in  Rome 
without  talking  to  their  model  boys,  brigands  or 
beggars,  as  it  might  happen,  in  the  spirit  with 
which  Harry  talked  to  Will  Corcoran  and  the 
Tidd  boys.  Nay,  Horace  even  went  down  into 
Calabria  and  established  an  order  there  among 


EUROPE,   ASIA,   AFRICA,   ETC.  93 

people  as  black  as  the  most  veritable  Carbonari ; 
and  he  was  fond  of  saying  that  he  found  there 
some  Italians,  who  remembered  the  padre  Col 
onel  Ingham,  and  who  had  not  forgotten  what 
I  had  told  them,  in  my  wretched  way,  of  Harry. 
I  think  Mabel  was  most  touched,  when,  as 
they  were  coming  home  through  Thuringia,  and 
had  stopped  on  her  account  for  a  day  or  two,  at 
the  smallest  and  least  pretentious  inn  that  ever 
escaped  from  being  put  into  Murray,  the  tidy  girl 
who  fried  the  trout,  made  the  bread,  smoothed 
the  pillows,  brushed  away  the  flies,  and  in  the 
evening  played  on  the  guitar,  —  proved  to  speak 
English,  and  proved  to  have  learned  it  at  Mani- 
towoc,  in  Wisconsin.  Mabel  was  so  far  Western 
ised  by  .this  time,  that  she  clave  to  the  German 
girl  as  to  a  sister,  —  more,  I  am  afraid,  for  the 
flesh  is  weak,  than  if  the  girl  had  been  a  bar-maid 
in  Norwich  or  in  Aylsham,  rather  nearer  Mabel's 
home  than  Manitowoc  was.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
they  sisterized  at  once.  Mabel  talked  Wiscon 
sin  to  her,  and  she  talked  of  the  Lakes  to  Ma 
bel,  —  broken  English  and  broken  German  got 
cemented  together ;  and  before  they  were  done, 
the  Fraulein  had  produced  a  Harry-Wadsworth 


94  TEN  TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

breast-pin  !  They  had  had  a  little  church  there 
in  Wisconsin,  back  twenty  miles  from  the  lake, 
where  one  of  Widdifield's  men  was  the  minister! 
And  this  girl  also  had  learned  "  to  look  forward 
and  not  backward,  to  look  up  and  not  down,  to 
look  out  and  not  in,"  and  to  "  lend  a  hand." 
And  when  she  came  back  to  Thuringia,  in  the 
little  guest-house  there,  she  had  organized  a 
chorus  of  peasant-girls,  who  met  her  once  a  week, 
and  read  their  Bibles  together,  and  sung  together, 
and  knitted  together,  and  four  times  a  year  gave 
away  the  stockings  they  knit  to  the  old  women 
in  the  charcoal  huts,  —  the  witches  of  seven 
generations  ago,  —  and  they  did  this  in  memory 
of  Harry!  So  far  that  little  candle  threw  its 
beams  !  They  showed  her  the  copy  of  "  Frank 
Leslie,"  which  had  the  picture  of  the  dedication 
of  the  Wadsworth  Library  Hall  in  Pioneer, 
Missouri. 

But  I  said  I  would  not  run  into  detail.  Nor 
will  I  even  cumber  the  page  by  the  nicely  ruled 
table  Dalrymple  made  up  for  me  three  years 
after  he  left  us.  I  had  enough  rather  copy 
scraps  from  Mabel's  crossed  letters.  She  wrote 
freely  to  us,  and  did  not  count  those  letters 


EUROPE,   ASIA,   A  ERICA,   ETC.  9d 

among  the  official  ones.  But  I  will  not  do  that. 
Nor  will  I  ask  you  to  follow  Mary  Throop 
through  the  mazes  of  her  Asiatic  correspond 
ence.  Queer  stamps  she  got,  with  her  Singa 
pore  mails,  and  her  Assam  distribution  offices,  — 
and  Galle  and  Shanghae  and  Petropaulowsky, 
and  End-of-the-earth  in  general.  Nor  will.  I 
offend  the  proprieties  by  copying  the  very  in 
different  spelling  of  Fergus  Jamiesson,  writing 
from  Monrovia,  —  nor  explain  the  great  difficul 
ties  of  his  inland  correspondence.  Far  less  will 
I  try  to  condense  within  these  waning  pages 
the  full  and  triumphant  statistics  compiled  by 
the  recording  and  corresponding  secretaries,  and 
the  staffs  of  assistant  correspondents  and  assist 
ant  recorders  of  the  Detroit  central  "  Office  of 
Registration."  Do  not  we  all  remember  George 
Canning's  words  ?  "I  can  prove  any  thing  by 
statistics,  —  except  the  truth."  So  we  will  let 
the  statistics  go,  accepting  only  the  results. 

For,  about  the  time  I  got  Dalrymple's  elabo 
rate  letter  of  his  three  years'  observation  in 
Europe,  Jamiesson's  from  Monrovia  came.  Be 
fore  long,  there  appeared  an  immense  printed 
document  from  Detroit,  and-  then  we  wrote  to 


96  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

Mary  for  her  Asiatic  statistics.  Queer  enough, 
the  old  law  held !  In  three  years,  everybody 
who  cared  for  this  dissemination,  by  personal 
love  and  personal  work,  of  the  spirit  of  an  un 
selfish  life,  had  found  some  nine,  ten,  or  eleven 
people  like  himself.  The  average  ran  at  ten,  as 
it  had  done.  And  when  Pauline,  who  was  now 
a  big  child,  added  up  all  the  columns,  they  came 
out,  under  this  eternal  law,  107,413.  "  TEN 

TIMES  TEN  THOUSAND  IS  A  HUNDRED  THOUSAND  ! " 

That  was  the  one  remark  which  Pauline  volun 
teered  on  the  occasion. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

TEN  TIMES  A  HUNDRED   THOUSAND. 

A  ND  so  my  story  is  well-nigh  done.  Not 
because  there  is  no  more  to  tell,  but  be 
cause  there  is  so  much  to  tell.  Anybody  can 
count  the  seed-leaves  on  an  elm-tree  the  year  it 
starts,  but  Dr.  Gray  and  Mr.  Peirce  are  the  only 
people  I  ever  heard  of  who  computed  the  leaves 
on  the  Washington  Elm ;  and  the  man  to  whom 
they  told  the  sum  forgot  whether  there  were  a 
million  or  ten  million,  because  neither  the  word 
million  nor  the  words  ten  million  gave  him  much 
idea  or  meaning.  I  could  tell  you  how  Harry 
Wadsworth  made  the  first  ten  what  they  were, 
but  I  could  only  hint  of  the  way  the  first  ten 
helped  the  first  hundred.  I  could  only  pick  out 
one  story  of  the  work  of  the  first  hundred,  and 
")f  the  first  thousand  I  know  I  have  told  you 
nothing.  But  nothing  dies  which  deserves  to 
live.  Fifteen  years  after  he  was  dead,  we  loved 
7 


98  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN 

him  all  the  same ;  and  every  true  word  he 
spoke  went  over  the  world  with  all  the  same 
power,  though  it  did  happen  to  be  spoken  in 
the  language  of  the  Ngambes  by  a  chief  of  the 
Barotse  to  a  woman  of  Sesheke.  Wildfire  does 
not  stop  of  itself;  and  when  a  hundred  thou 
sand  blades  of  grass  are  really  on  fire,  it  does  not 
stop  easily.  So  the  next  three  years  from  this 
count  of  Pauline's  proved. 

Dalrymple  had  also  had  to  appoint  secretaries 
for  France,  Southern  Italy,  Northern  Italy,  and 
the  rest.  His  polyglot  was  not  very  good,  and 
he  said  different  nations  had  different  ways.  So 
it  was  in  Jamiesson's  continent  also,  Kiiimane 
and  Sesheke,  Ossuan  and  Jinga,  there  were 
many  languages,  many  methods,  little  writing, 
and  no  mails.  But  love  worked  wonders  easily 
in  that  African  blood,  and  Jamiesson  had  most 
extraordinary  stories  from  traders,  and  camel- 
driver?,  and  boatmen,  and  ivory  carriers,  and  1 
know  not  whom.  In  Asia  they  got  things  going 
with  their  own  Asiatic  fervor,  and  they  went 
forward  with  a  rush  when  they  were  started. 
All  religions  have  begun  there,  and  our  co-oper 
ation  -in  true  life,  which  was  no  new  religion, 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED   THOUSAND.  99 

but  only  a  little  additional  vigor  with  a  little 
more  simplicity  in  the  old,  was  at  home  on  the 
old  soil.  And  here  in  America,  I  need  not  tell 
how  many  forms  of  organization  and  of  refusal 
to  organize,  how  many  statements,  platforms, 
movements,  combinations,  head  centres,  middle 
centres,  and  centre  centres,  would  develop  in 
three  years. 

What  pleased  me  in  it  all  was  this,  —  that 
nobody,  so  far  as  I  could  find  out,  got  swept 
away  with  the  folly  of  counting  noses.  Nobody 
seemed  to  think  he  was  subduing  the  world, — 
because  he  was  in  a  correspondence  bureau  and 
kept  count  of  those  who  subdued.  I  do  not 
believe  anybody  gave  more  time  to  the  corre 
spondence  than  Horace  did,  —  a  letter  before 
breakfast,  and  another  as  he  went  to  bed,  —  per 
haps  half  an  hour  a  day.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  am  perfectly  sure  that  Horace  was  ten  times 
a  man,  because  he  was  thus  thrown  into  outside 
relations.  What  does  the  third  "plank"  say, 
but  "  Look  out  rather  than  in."  It  was  near  the 
end  of  these  three  years  that  they  made  an  attack 
on  us,  Horace  and  Mabel,  and  insisted  that  our 
four  oldest  girls  should  make  them  a  visit.  We 


100  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

said  it  was  nonsense,  —  but  the  girls  did  not 
think  so,  —  and  after  many  obstacles  set  up  by 
me,  Horace  and  Mabel  and  the  four  girls  con 
quered  ;  and,  trampling  over  my  body,  Ajice, 
Bertha,  Clara,  and  Pauline,  all  sailed  for  Eng 
land,  went  to  Norfolk,  and  made  a  most  lovely 
summer  visit  there.  Horace  took  them  up  into 
Scotland,  and  they  tried  salmon-fishing  there,  — 
all  of  them,  Mabel  and  all,  went  to  the  Lakes 
together,  and  they  slopped  with  their  water- 
colors  there ;  but  the  very  best  of  all  was  at 
home.  That  was  so  homelike,  so  English,  and 
so  lovely.  I  think  Mabel's  father,  in  his  heart 
of  hearts,  thought  that  these  four  girls  were  the 
most  extraordinary  things  which  Horace  had 
ever  sent  home  from  his  wanderings;  that  no 
stuffed  kangaroo,  or  no  living  emu  of  his  boy 
hood,  equalled  these  four  adventurous  living 
specimens.  But  none  the  less  did  he  come  over 
daily  to  the  house  to  see  what  could  be  done 
that  day  for  their  amusement.  And  Horace's 
own  father,  as  the  girls  by  one  accord  declared, 
was  "just  lovely." 

Of  which  visit,  let  them  write  the  history, — in 
this  place  only  this  is  to  be  noted :  that  except- 


TEN   TIMES   A    HUNDRED   THOUSAND.  101 

ing  when  Pauline  went  bodily  into  Horace's 
den,  and  compelled  him  to  show  her  Wadsworth 
letters,  they  hardly  saw  or  heard  any  thing  of 
the  secretary's  duties  as  secretary.  What  they 
did  see  was  the  eager,  cheerful  life  of  a  consci 
entious  gentleman  in  the  midst  of  a  large  ten 
antry.  They  saw  farms  in  perfect  order ;  they 
saw  laborers  with  the  lines  of  promotion  open ; 
they  went  into  schools  of  cheerful,  bright,  in 
telligent  children,  well  taught  and  thriving;  they 
saw  all  the  time  that  Horace  was  lifting  where 
he  stood  ;  and  that  by  Swaff  ham  in  Norfolk,  he 
was  driving  out  the  King  Bombas  of  that  region 
quite  as  effectually  as  he  drove  out  another 
King  Bomba  from  Calabria.  His  vocation  was 
that  of  an  English  land-proprietor,  compelling 
deserts  to  blossom  and  bear  fruit ;  his  avocation 
was  so  near  to  it,  that  it  was  hard  to  discrimi 
nate.  It  was  the  making  the  men  who  worked 
on  his  estates  to  be  more  manly,  and  the  lifting 
up  their  children's  lives  ;  yes,  and  without  their 
knowing  it  also,  the  farmers  who  only  paid  him 
rent,  and  the  laborers  whom  they  hired,  and  their 
children  also,  were  lifted  up  in  the  general  reno 
vation.  These  were  the  vocation  and  the  avo- 


102  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

cation.  For  a  little  "  Third,"  as  he  called  it,  — 
a  pastime  of  his  dressing-room,  —  he  kept  up 
the  correspondence  with  such  Englishmen  as 
believed  in  the  four  cardinal  points,  and  were 
trying  to  make  other  people  live  by  them. 

Norfolk,  Norfolk,  Norfolk,  —  always  Norfolk, 
with  its  dear  English  names,  Swaffham  and 
Cockley  and  Aylsham,  and  I  know  not  where 
not,  —  are  the  burden  of  the  girls'  tales  of  this 
celebrated  English  visit.  But  the  end  of  it  is 
the  part  which  specially  belongs  in  this  history 
of  mine ;  namely,  the  expedition  they  all  made  to 
Baden-Baden.  A  queer  place,  you  would  have 
said,  for  Horace  and  Mabel  actually  to  start  for, 
having  no  other  object  than  to  entertain  four 
country  cousins,  —  that  is,  rny  four  girls.  But 
you  say  this  because  you  do  not  know  that  the 
Prime  Minister,  and  indeed  half  the  government, 
and  the  Crown  Prince  himself,  were,  at  this  time, 
all  enthusiasts  for  "  the  four  cardinal  points " 
named  above ;  and  had,  long  before,  painted 
these  statements  of  them,  in  letters  of  gold  on 
the  four  sides  of  the  Kursaal,  where  you,  Mr. 
Chips,  remember  losing  five  hundred  rouleaux 
the  night  before  you  left  for  home :  tk  Sursum 


TEN   TIMES   A    HUNDRED    THOUSAND.  103 

corda,"  u  vorwiirts  nicht  ruckwarts,"  "  avzovg  ov 
aavtov"  and  "  lend  a  hand."  This  was  the  way 
they  rendered  the  four  legends,  which  Detroit 
had  been  satisfied  to  print  in  our  vernacular.  I 
need  not  say  that  the  whole  gambling  business 
was  at  an  end ;  but  though  they  were  virtuous, 
there  were  cakes  still,  and  what  took  the  place 
of  ale.  The  government  —  younger  men  than 
you  and  I  remember  in  Baden  —  were  all  of  them 
enthusiasts,  and  all  of  them  eesthetic.  They 
declared  that  they  would  show  that  Baden-Baden 
without  high  play  could  be  made  more  attractive 
than  Baden-Baden  with  it :  they  gave  the  four 
"  cardinal  points  "  for  the  secrets  of  the  attraction, 
and  certainly  they  succeeded.  The  drama  of 
Weimar  was  never  better  than  theirs ;  the  out 
door  life  of  Baden-Baden  itself,  in  its  tawdry 
days,  was  never  as  luxurious  as  this  was  now  ; 
the  fine  art  of  Munich  was  more  grandiose,  but 
not  half  so  lovely  as  this  ;  and,  what  with  pretty 
girls,  enthusiastic  artists,  an  opera  beyond  re 
proach,  the  perfection  of  comedy,  the  most 
agreeable  men  in  Europe  and  the  most  attractive 
women,  —  the  people  who  came  there  managed 
to  live  without  rouge  et  noir,  —  at  least  my  girls 
did. 


104  TEN    TIMES    ONE    IS   TEN. 

But  they  did  not  go  there  for  mere  agreeable 
living.  It  was,  as  we  know,  rather  more  than 
eighteen  years  since  that  meeting  of  ten  of  us, 
in  the  North  Colchester  station  house.  It  was 
Ihree  years  since,  as  I  told  you,  Pauline  added 
up  her  "  hundred  thousand  "  of  the  multiples  of 
that  original  ten.  And  at  the  end  of  the  eighteen 

o  o 

years,  the  Crown  Prince  had  determined  to  call 
together  privately  a  Conferenz  of  corresponding 
secretaries;  not,  as  he  said  in  his  circular,  for  the 
purpose  of  making  any  plans,  —  for,  as  he  sup 
posed,  the  great  merit  of  our  movement  was  that 
•it  never  had  any  plans,  — but  that  the  secretaries 
might  know  each  other  by  sight,  and,  at  least, 
have  the  satisfaction  of  shaking  hands.  "  If 
they  did  nothing  else,"  said  the  Crown  Prince, 
"  they  could  show  each  other  how  they  kept  their 
record-books."  So  they  assembled,  —  and  for 
four  of  Horace's  suite  I  can  testify  that,  as  we 
say  down  East,  "  they  had  an  excellent  time." 
But  it  was  the  queerest  assembly  that  ever  came 
together  in  that  Kursaal. 

Sailors  from  the  Levantine  ports,  old  long- 
robed  men  from  Poland,  who  looked  like  Shylock, 
but  were  very  unlike  him,  cloth-men  from  the 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED   THOUSAND.  105 

depths  of  Germany,  quiet  Spanish  scholars  from 
the  university  cities,  two  quaint-looking  school 
masters  from  Holland,  and  nice  stout  men,  who, 
Alice  is  sure,  were  burgomasters.  Then  among 
all  this  white  trash,  you  might  see  Jamiesson 
himself,  great  quiet  black  man,  a  little  over 
dressed,  and  his  crew  of  all  colors,  camel-drivers, 
pottery- men,  wool  merchants,  cadis,  and  muftis. 
Mary  Throop  was  there,  looking  in  the  face,  for 
the  first  time,  beys  and  effendis,  with  whose 
autographs  she  had  been  long  acquainted,  and 
talking,  with  smiles  and  with  gestures,  to  people 
who  spoke  "  Central  Tartary  "  and  "  Turkey-in- 
Asia,"  but  of  other  lingo  knew  none.  All,  save  a 
herd  of  black-coated  Americans,  looked  like  a 
fancy  ball,  as  Clara  said,  of  a  thousand  people  who 
still  moved  about  as  if  they  had  all  breakfasted 
together  and  were  entirely  confident  in  each 
other,  and  were  never  to  part  from  each  other 
again.  At  the  first  meeting,  two  or  three  hun 
dred  out  of  the  thousand  had  each  his  record- 
book  under  his  arm ;  and,  on  the  old  faded  green 
of  the  tables,  left  in  memoriam,  you  would  see 
a  Spaniard  trying  to  explain  to  a 'Pole  about 
his  totals,  his  gratifying  coincidences,  and  his 


106  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

surprises,  —  holding  up  his  fingers  by  way  of 
count,  and  the  Pole  bowing,  and  sympathizing, 
and  saying,  "Ah!"  and  "  aussi,"  under  the  im 
pression  that  "aussi"  was  Spanish  for  "yes." 
It  was  very  funny  to  the  eye,  —  for  it  was  the 
Tower  of  Babel  backwards.  It  was  all  lan 
guages  and  peoples  united  again  under  the 
empire  of  love. 

No !  They  would  not  have  any  meeting  for 
speech-making,  lest  they  should  get  into  the  old 
ruts.  Only,  on  the  day  fixed  for  the  first  assem 
bling,  the  Crown  Prince  made  one  very  satisfac 
tory  speech,  with  occasional  quotations  of  the  four 
mottoes,  pointing  to  them,  which  was  cheered 
loudly  by  those  who  did  not  understand  it,  and 
equally  loudly  by  those  that  did.  Then,  instead 
of  the  usual  forlornity  of  a  convention,  they  all 
fell  to  talking  together,  and  a  charming  buzz 
arose.  Dark -eyed  secretaries  from  Bulgaria  wer? 
seen  talking  to  blonde  secretaries  with  curls  from 
the  neighborhood  of  Fort  Scott,  in  Kansas;  a 
ver^  business-like  secretary  from  Oshkosh  was 
caught  talking,  behind  a  door,  with  a  very  pretty 
Circassian  secretary  who  had  brought  her  book 
all  the  way  from  Himry.  The  result  cf  a  week's 


TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED   THOUSAND.  107 

rapid  talking,  with  drives,  and  walks,  and  con 
certs,  and  picnics,  was  very  great  mutual  confi 
dence  and  regard  among  the  secretaries,  more, 
as  Pauline  thought,  and  as  Mabel  agreed,  than 
if  they  had  all  sat  on  uncomfortable  settees  eight 
hours  a  day  for  a  week,  and  had  discussed  some 
resolutions  that  nobody  cared  a  very  great  deal 
for.  Only  then  there  would  have  been  so  much 
more  to  put  in  the  newspapers!  And  what  is 
life  good  for,  if  you  cannot  put  it  into  the  news 
papers  ? 

Meanwhile,  the  secretary  of  state  was  at  work 
with  a  detail  of  clerks  furnished  him  by  the 
home  department ;  and  the  different  secretaries 
brought  in  their  books  to  him,  and  their  totals 
were  transcribed  and  added,  and  put  into  all 
sorts  of  tables,  in  the  most  admirable  way,  so  as 
to  look  quite  as  dull  as,  in  reality,  the  miracles 
they  described  were  exciting.  And  the  result  of 
the  whole  was,  that  in  the  three  last  years  the 
movement  had  gained  TENFOLD  !  Each  indi 
vidual  member  seemed,  on  the  average,  to  have 
brought  in  ten  new  members,  or  so  nearly  ten, 
that  the  deaths  in  three  years  were  made  good, 
with  nine  members  more.  The  grand  total 


08  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

increased  the  107,413  members  of  three  years 
before  to  1,081,729!  So  soon  as  this  was 
proved,  a  royal  salute  was  fired  from  the  old 
batteries.  And,  that  evening,  the  court-band 
performed  for  the  first  time  a  magnificent  new 
symphony,  by  the  great  Rudjlphssen  himself,  of 
which  the  theme  was  Zehn  Mai  Eins  ist  Zehn, 
which  was  received  with  rapture  by  all  who  at 
all  appreciated  classical  music.  I  am  sorry  to 
say  some  of  the  Chinese  secretaries  did  not. 
But  as  there  was  not  room  for  them  to  sit  down, 
they  walked  in  the  gardens  in  the  moonlight. 
Of  all  which  glories  Bertha  wrote  full-  accounts 
to  us,  winding  up,  in  immense  letters,  with  what 
was  everybody's  motto  and  badge  at  Baden-Ba 
den, — 

TEN   TIMES   A   HUNDRED   THOUSAND   IS   A   MILLION. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE   CONFEKENZ  AT   CHRISTMAS   ISLAND. 

A  ND  so  after  a  little  of  Switzerland,  and  a 
dash  at  Rome  and  at  Naples,  my  girls  came 
home.  No:  no  matter  what  secretaries  they 
had  met,  that  is  not  part  of  the  story.  It  had 
certainly  been  the  most  carious  convention  that 
ever  was  held ;  with  no  speeches  except  this  by 
the  Crown  Prince,  and,  instead  of  Resolutions, 
nothing  but  a  Symphony.  A  convention  which 
ended  in  a  symphony !  Nothing  but  a  symphony ! 
As  I  heard  Kate  —  who  had  been  to  Trinity  for 
she  knew  what  —  say,  bitterly  disappointed,  that 
there  was  "nothing  but  prayers"  there; — -and 
as  the  pretty  Baroness  Thompson  when  she 
returned  from  her  wedding-tour,  —  when  they 
had  arrived  at  Niagara  too  late  for  the  hops  at 
the  hotels, — told  me  that  there  was  nothing  at 
Niagara  but  water!  A  convention  with  nothing 
but  a  symphony !  But  not  so  bad  a  convention 
after  all. 


110  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS   TEN. 

For  it  sent  all  these  secretaries  home  well 
convinced  that  there  was  much  more  in  the 
movement  than  figures  ;  and  that  they  and  the 
cause  they  loved  were  lost  if  it  were  shipwrecked 
on  statistics  ;  — •  that  dear  Harry  Wadsworth 
himself  would  be  dissatisfied,  even  in  heaven,  if 
he  thought  one  of  them  was  getting  betrayed 
into  preferring  a  method  to  the  reality.  "  Love 
is  the  whole,"  said  the  Piscataquis  Secretary  to 
me,  as  he  stopped  at  No.  9,  with  some  letters 
from  the  girls  ; — and  I  know  he  went  down  to 
his  camp  of  lumbermen  more  resolved  than 
ever  to  lend  a  hand,  —  and  some  very  noble 
things  we  heard  from  that  lumber  camp  before 
the  next  year  had  gone  by. 

But  I  have  forsworn  detail.  You  see  we  are 
rushing  to  the  end  !  From  this  great  Conferenz 
the  story  of  the  movement  is  indeed  mixed  up 
with  the  larger  history  of  the  world.  It  was 
only  then  that  for  the  first  time  many  in  the 
movement,  and  many  out  of  it,  knew  that  there 
was  any  movement  at  all.  A  stone  is  thrown 
into  the  water,  but  who  ever  knows  where  or  if 
the  sixth  circle  strikes  the  meadow-grass  on  the 
shore  ? 


THE    CONFERENZ   AT   CHRISTMAS   ISLAND.      Ill 

Nor  did  we  hear  of  any  Conferenz  or  Con 
vention  three  years  after,  till  it  was  too  late 
for  us.  We  went  on  in  our  quiet  way.  Life 
was  purer  and  simpler  and  less  annoyed  to  us, 
because  constantly,  now,  we  met  with  near  and 
dear  friends  whom  we  had  not  known  a  day 
before,  and  who  looked  up  and  not  down,  looked 
out  and  not  in,  looked  forward  and  not  back 
ward,  and  were  ready  to  lend  a  hand.  Life 
seemed  simpler  to  them,  and  it  is  my  belief  that, 
to  all  of  us,  in  proportion  as  we  bothered  less 
about  cultivating  ourselves,  and  were  willing  to 
spend  and  be  spent  for  that  without  us,  above 
us,  and  before  us,  life  became  infinite  and  this 
world  became  heaven. 

But  there  was  a  Conferenz,  though  we  did 
not  know  of  it  beforehand;  —  without  taking 
down  the  dictionary  I  cannot  tell  what  they 
called  it.  It  was  in  one  of  the  South-Sea  Isl 
ands,  set  a-going  by  some  of  George  Button's 
Kermadeck  people.  They  could  not  go  to  Baden- 
Baden,  of  course  ;  and  I  believe  the  whole  Pacific 
Ocean  had  had  but  two  representatives  there. 
Their  canoes  could  not  double  Cape  Horn',  they 
said.  But  when  they  heard  the  accounts  of 


112  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

Baden-Baden,  they  all  said  that,  for  all  its  glories, 
it  was  still  true,  —  as  Mr.  Morris  had  made  out, 
—  that  the  earthly  paradise  was  in  their  own 
beautiful  ocean,  —  Pacific  Ocean  indeed,  if  any 
one  understood  the  sublime  prophecy  in  which 
it  was  named.  So  the  Beche-la-mer  people,  and 
the  seal-fishers,  and  the  Nootka  Sounders,  and 
the  birds'-nest  men,  and  all  sorts  of  Alexander 
Selkkks,  and  Swiss  Families,  and  Peter  Wilkin- 
ses,  and  Crusoes  without  a  name, —  all  the 
Judds  and  Bishop  Selwyns  and  Pitcairns  Isl 
anders  fell  to  corresponding  with  each  other,  and 
organized  their  own  celebration  of  the  seventh 
triennial  anniversary  of  the  original  club  meet 
ing.  It  was  to  be  held  on  Christmas  Island,  for 
the  name  was  of  good  omen  ;  and,  as  near  as 
they  could  figure,  that  was  near  the  centre  of 
the  Pacific,  and  on  the  whole  equally  convenient 
and  inconvenient  to  everybody,  —  like  a  well- 
placed  school-house  in  the  school  district  of  a 
country  town.  Great  correspondence  they  had 
with  other  secretaries,  and  great  temptations 
they  offered  of  bread-fruit  and  poe,  and  cocoa- 
nuts,  and  bananas,  with  actually  unlimited  sup 
plies  of  guava  jelly,  to  any  who  were  carnally 


THE   CONFEBENZ  AT   CHRISTMAS   ISLAND.      113 

minded,  if  they  would  come.  Great  efforts  they 
made  to  get  some  of  the  "  original  ten,"  and 
with  such  success  that  the  Widow  Corcoran 
went,  and  one  of  the  Tidd  boys,  and  Widdi- 
field,  —  and  great  heroes,  I  can  tell  you,  they 
were  too.  And  in  every  sort  of  craft  the  ocean 
bears  did  the  delegates  from  different  groups 
arrive ;  from  groups  with  names,  and  groups 
without  them.  As  by  those  ocean  currents  the 
original  cocoanuts  were  borne  wafted  in  their 
husky  boats;  and  every  seed  and  every  egg  that 
has  been  needed  since  for  the  food  of  man  or 
beast,  —  so  the  delegates  or  secretaries  came 
north,  came  south,  came  east,  and  came  west,  to 
Christmas  Island.  And  they  held  high  festival 
there  for  many  days.  George  Dutton  was  there, 
evidently  no  day  older  than  he  was  when  in 

California    he    ran    for    his    life.      Widdifield 

» 

met  college  pupils  of  his,  whom  he  had  not 
seen  since  he  preached  in  Newark  in  New  Jer- 
sny.  Mrs.  Corcoran  met  some  people  from  the 
Old  Country  who  had  been  living  in  Honolulu 
for  twenty  years ;  but  on  conversation  it  proved 
that  from  their  old  home  in  Ballykeir  they  could 
see  Stevie's  Mount  in  the  sunrise,  which  she, 
8 


1x4  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

Mrs.  Corcoran,  always  saw  in  the  sunset,  when, 
as  a  little  girl,  she  came  and  went  in  Ballytul- 
lah ;  and,  though  neither  of  them  had  ever  gone 
to  Stevie's  Mount,  by  going  round  the  world, 
they  had  met  here  on  Easter  day  on  Christmas 
Island.  Strong  representations  from  Japan  were 
there,  of  those  charming,  mild-spoken,  gentle 
manly  noblemen,  and  in  the  ardor  of  the  move 
ment  some  of  them  had  ventured  to  bring  their 
sisters  and  their  wives. 

And  there,  too,  they  had  their  symphonies  in 
their  own  kind,  —  though  not  after  the  fashion 
of  the  court-band  of  Carlsruhe.  Symphonies  in 
dan-cing,  symphonies  in  canoes  on  still  water  be 
hind  guardian  reefs,  symphonies  whispered  in 
the  ear,  symphonies  spoken  in  prayer  to  God  by 
great  congregations; — there  was  no  want  of 
symphonies,  and  no  want  of  harmony,  though 
there  was  not  a  resolution  or  programme  or  pre 
amble  printed  or  voted  for,  nor  so  much  as  a 
cornet-a-piston  on  the  whole  Island.  The  secre 
taries  had  their  books,  tappa  books  and  books 
of  rice  paper,  books  of  cotton,  books  of  seal 
skin,  books  from  America  ruled  by  Leveridge 
and  Stratton's  compound,  patent,  self-adjusting, 


THE   CONFERENZ   AT   CHRISTMAS   ISLAND.      115 

double  combination  ruling  machine,  and  long 
rolls  of  parchment  which  some  Muftis  brought 
from  beyond  Muscat.  And  speculative  secreta 
ries  and  calculating  secretaries  lay  for  days  with 
their  books  under  fronds  of  giant  ferns,  twenty 
feet  high,  —  yes,  just  as  lovingly  as  the  fairies 
lie  under  the  maiden's-hair  in  the  spring  pasture, 
—  and  calculated  and  copied,  subtracted,  trans 
ferred,  cancelled,  and  added.  Immense  corre 
spondence  they  opened  from  absent  secretaries, 
and  then  calculated  more,  made  more  transfers, 
and  added  more.  Then  they  filed  the  letters,  and 
went  off  to  their  dancing,  or  talking,  or  story-tell 
ing.  Then  the  next  day  they  met  and  calculated 
again,  and  more  boats  and  ships  brought  more 
letters.  And  after  two  or  three  weeks  the  whole 
was  put  in  the  proper  tables,  and  the  great  law, 
"  Ten  Times  One  is  Ten,"  was  verified  again. 
In  only  three  years  from  the  Conferenz  at  Baden- 
Baden  it  was  made  certain  that  the  movement 
was  represented  by  at  least  10,934,127  members. 
There  was  immense  jollification  at  the  announce 
ment,  —  a  great  international  feast  of  two  finger 
and  three  finger  poe,  with  roast-beef,  beche-la- 
mer,  birds'  nests,  and  guava  jelly,  ad  libitum. 


116  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS  TEN. 

And  when  all  had  well  feasted,  George  sent  off 
his  own  lovely  clipper  yacht,  the  "  Harry  Wads- 
worth,"  which  had  long  before  taken  the  place  of 
the  shattered  canoe,  with  a  skipper  who  cracked 
o.i  day  and  night  to  Hawaii,  and  telegraphed 
to  the  four  continental  secretaries  only  these 
words  :  "  Ten  million  nine  hundred  and  thirty- 
four  thousand,  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven." 
"  Only  these  and  nothing  more."  And  the  next 
morning,  all  over  the  world  where  there  were 
newspapers,  in  the  head  line  of  the  "  Personal " 
in  the  leading  journals  of  the  towns  where  were 
secretaries,  there  appeared  in  full-face  italic  cap 
itals  these  words  only,  understood  by  the  elect,  if 
by  no  others :  — 

TEN  TIMES  A.  MILLION  IS  TEN  MILLION. 

That  was  the  way  in  which  the  Christmas 
Island  meeting  and  its  results  were  first  an 
nounced  to  me  and  to  Polly.  We  had  been  at 
No.  9  for  four  or  five  months,  and  by  misfor 
tune  all  our  letters  from  the  Kermadeck  Islands 
had  gone  to  D  Street  in  Washington,  because 
the  Kermadeckers  had  neglected  to  put  "  South 
Boston "  on  them.  Then  they  had  been  sent 


THE   CONFERENZ   AT   CHRISTMAS   ISLAND.      117 

back  from  the  dead-letter  office  to  the  Island  ;  and 
when  Dutton  got  home  from  the  festival,  he  found 
them  there.  Perhaps  it  did  not  make  much  dif 
ference,  as  I  suppose  none  of  us  could  have 
gone.  But  we  should  have  been  glad  to  make 
our  own  decision. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

TEN  TIMES   TEN  MILLION. 

OO  the  end  comes  of  course.  For  when  ten 
million  people  have  determined  that  the 
right  thing  shall  come  to  pass  in  this  world, — 
having  a  good  God  on  their  side,  they  will 
always  be  found  to  have  their  own  way.  For 
reasons  I  have  explained,  the  history  becomes 
more  vague.  For  we  have  now  come  to  the 
period  between  1879  and  1882,  and  the  files  of 
newspapers  for  that  period,  let  us  be  thankful, 
are  comparatively  few.  It  was  in  the  fall  of 
1879  that  they  gathered  together  under  the  fern 
leaves  on  Christmas  Island. 

But  this  ten  million  despatch  gave  spirit  to  all 
parties.  And,  over  all  the  world,  many  a  man 
and  woman  who  had  been  talking  prose  all  their 
lives,  and  doing  very  commonplace  things,  began 
to  learn  the  great  lessons,  —  that  it  is  in  the  long- 
run  much  better  to  talk  prose  than  to  talk  poetry, 


TEN    TIMES   TEN   MILLION.  119 

and  that  he  who  does  commonplace  things  well 
may  be  mastering  the  world.  With  the  ten 
million  despatch,  I  should  say,  there  came  for 
the  first  time  the  feeling  that  even  by  prose  and 
by  commonplace  the  world  might  be  saved. 

And,  for  three  years  more,  the  three  years 
between  1879  and  1882,  the  ten  million  people, 
each  in  his  own  home,  were  doing  just  what 
Harry  himself  did  in  the  beginning.  Only  they 
had  the  feeling,  now,  that  something  was  coming 
to  pass  which  he  never  dreamed  of,  nor  the  Club 
of  Ten,  nor  the  Detroit  Club.  They  did  not 
put  the  "  movement "  into  the  newspaper ;  there 
was  no  "movement"  to  put  in,  —  more  than 
there  was  when  Harry  gave  the  Widow  Corco 
ran  her  chips  in  the  wood-shed.  Still  the  great 
fact  of  the  existence  of  the  ten  million  could  not 
well  be  kept  out  of  the  newspapers.  And  with 
out  dwelling  on  this  period,  I  may  just  say  that 
it  was  in  these  three  years  that  the  "  movement,'' 
if  it  must  be  called  so,  went  through  the  neces 
sary  crises  of  controversy. 

Mr.  Agassiz  says  that  every  great  scientific 
truth  goes  through  three  stages.  First,  people 
say  it  conflicts  with  the  Bible.  Next,  they  say 


120  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

it  had  been  discovered  before.  Lastly,  they  say 
they  always  believed  it.  Exactly  this  happened 
with  the  "movement."  The  first  two  stages 
came  in,  in  the  three  years  between  1879  and 
1882. 

As  soon  as  the  magic  words, 

TEN  TIMES  A.  MILLION  IS   TEN  MILLION. 

appeared  by  direction  of  the  local  secretaries  in 
the  "  Personal "  of  the  daily  newspapers,  all  the 
religious  newspapers  began  inquiring  into  their 
meaning,  —  and  to  ask  whether  there  were  not 
concealed  some  profligate  attack  on  the  Bible. 
The  particularly  bright  religious  journals  got 
leaders  out  about  it  within  a  fortnight  after  the 
words  appeared,  —  the  others  not  so  soon.  This 
delay  was  not  amiss,  however.  The  bright  ones 
had  all  proved  that  the  words  were  very  danger 
ous,  and  that  a  terrible  plot  against  the  church 
was  concealed  in  them.  This  waked  up  the 
drowsy  ones,  and  they  did  not  like  to  own  that 
they  had  been  asleep.  So  they  all  said  they  did 
not  think  the  words  were  dangerous;  the  only 
danger  was  in  the  columns  of  the  wakeful  journ 
als.  This  gave  our  friends  one  half  the  religious 


TEN  TIMES   TEN   MILLION.  121 

press  as  counsel  for  the  defence ;  and  as,  in  truth, 
our  whole  effort  was  in  the  simple  line  of  the  most 
unpretending  Christianity,  whenever  any  journal 
did  try  to  rip  up  the  constitution  of  a  club,  or  to 
prove  that  Harry  Wadsworth  was  a  heathen,  the 
effort  generally  came  to  grief  of  its  own  weight. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  judicious  comment  on 
the  dangers  of  secret  societies,  till  it  proved  that 
none  of  the  ten  million  people,  as  they  came  to 
be  called,  had  formed  any  secret  society.  A 
good  deal  was  said  about  log-rolling  and  mutual 
admiration  societies.  But  on  the  whole  it  proved 
that  they  had  a  distaste  for  politics,  and  that 
when  they  were  in  public  life  they  were  men  the 
public  could  not  do  without.  Before  many 
months,  as  it  happened,  a  proposal  was  made  in 
the  English  Parliament  to  omit  the  letter  u 
from  the  spelling  of  "honour "in  the  English 
Bibles.  And  then  on  this  question  such  a  con 
troversy  arose  in  England  as  swept  through  the 
religious  press  of  all  the  world,  and  this  quite 
ended  the  "ten  million  discussion."  Nothing 
more  was  ever  said,  so  far  as  I  ever  heard,  about 
the  movement  being  hostile  to  the  Bible. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  a  good  many  bright 
fellows,  frontier  bishops,  secretaries  of  missionary 


122  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS  TEN. 

societies,  and  such  like,  who  were  really  trying,  in 
their  own  way,  to  get  the  world  forward  if  only 
they  could  find  places  for  their  levers,  studied  the 
bit  of  mathematics  by  which  in  twenty-one  years 
seven  zeroes  had  been  annexed  to  the  1.  which 
stood  for  Harry  Wadsworth.  They  had  the  wit  to 
see  that  this  was  much  more  substantial  victory 
than  all  their  tracts  had  yet  won,  —  or  any  one 
of  their  embassies.  They  saw  at  the  same  mo 
ment  that  it  was  precisely  the  system  on  which 
all  Christian  victories  have  been  won,  —  on 
which  the  hundred  people  of  the  Mayflower  cabin 
had  become  so  many  millions  to-day.  Hundreds 
of  these  men  were  sharp-sighted  enough  and 
faithful  enough  to  claim  the  ten  million  as  their 
own  allies ;  and  at  once  there  were  published 
millons  of  tracts  with  such  titles  as  — 

"  HENRY  WADSWORTH  proved  a  SANDEMANIAN." 
Published  by  the  Sandemanian  Board.  Price, 
one  cent;  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  copies 
for  one  dollar. 

« TEN  MILLION  WITNESSES  to  the 
Articles  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church." 
Published  for  gratuitous  distribution,  with  the 
authority  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Henry  Cairns.  Min 
neapolis,  1880. 


TEN   TIMES   TEN   MILLION.  123 

"REASONS  which  make  it  evident  that 
HENRY  WADSWORTH  was  a  Unitarian 
Congregational  Christian."  Tract  No.  97.  Sixth 
Series.  American  Unitarian  Association,  Chi 
cago,  1881. 

"  WADSWORTH  A  UNIVERSALIST.  A  Short  Tract, 
by  Hiram  Ballou.  For  circulation."  Publishing 
House,  New  York,  1880. 

"The  Standards  Planted.  An  Affectionate 
Appeal  to  the  Ten  Million."  Philadelphia.  Pres 
byterian  Union,  1880. 

"  Wesley's  Class  System  vindicated  in  Wads- 
worth's  Tens."  Methodist  Board.  New  York, 
1880. 

And  even  Rome  did  not  neglect  an  occasion 
so  tempting ;  but  there  appeared  "  Religious 
Liberty  the  Method  of  the  Holy  Church:  an 
Address  to  those  who  believe  in  the  Four  Detroit 
Mottoes."  Catholic  Publication  House,  New 
York,  1880. 

All  of  them  were  eager  to  make  out  that  the 
four  Detroit  Epigrams  belonged  specially  to 
their  own  communions,  and  that  the  ten  million 
would  advance  their  central  purpose  by  coming 
meekly  into  their  respective  organizations. 


124  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

It  was  true  enough  that  dear  Harry  had  pro 
fited  by  all  these  people's  books  and  plans.  But 
Porter  was  all  wrong,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  in  pre 
tending  that  Harry  was  a  Sandemanian.  The 
truth  was,  he  was  an  officer  of  the  Church  of 
the  Unity  in  Colchester ;  and,  as  such,  he  was 
at  liberty  to  get  all  he  could  from  Pope  or  from 
Pagan.  In  that  Church,  they  never  asked  what 
a  man  believed,  but  they  expected  him  to  believe 
it  with  all  his  might,  and  no  mistake.  If  he 
believed  in  Christ  enough  to  come  to  their  com 
munion  table,  they  never  sought  an  excuse  to 
turn  him  away. 

So  these  three  years  sped  by,  —  first,  in  the 
endeavor  to  show  that  the  ten  million  were  the 
most  irreligious  of  men  and  women,  which  they 
were  not ;  second,  in  an  attempt  from  all  the  foci 
of  ecclesiastical  order  to  show  that  they  were 
the  most  religious  of  men.  To  my  notion  they 
were,  —  though  perhaps  not  exactly  as  these  sev 
eral  tract-writers  supposed. 

Any  way,  religion  or  irreligion,  the  discussion 
did  not  help  much,  and  did  not  hinder  much, 
though  perhaps  it  did  hinder  a  little.  The  ten 
million  were  terribly  in  earnest,  — just  as  much 


TEN    TIMES   TEN   MILLION.  125 

as  the  Original  Ten  were.  Indeed,  they  were 
rather  too  much  in  earnest  for  any  large  scale 
frolic  when  the  three  years  were  over.  I  might 
say,  rather,  that  in  that  summer,  the  summer  of 
1.882,  the  whole  civilized  world  seemed  very 
much  changed.  Was  it  that  so  many  men  and 
women  were  caring  for  others  more  than  them 
selves,  and  living  for  God's  law  and  not  for 
the  Devil's  ?  Any  way,  there  was  not  a  rail 
road  accident  in  America  or  Europe  that  sum 
mer  ;  Congress  adjourned  after  a  session  of  only 
three  weeks,  and  most  of  the  State  legislatures 
after  a  session  of  only  three  days.  In  the  pretty 
country  jails  they  were  taking  summer  boarders. 
None  of  the  schools  in  America  had  any  evening 
lessons.  The  daily  newspapers  all  had  feuilletons 
with  continued  stories  in  them,  because  they 
had  neither  murders,  accidents,  nor  sensation 
trials.  Coal  was  at  half  price,  because  they  mined 
by  machinery,  and  the  workmen  had  forgotten 
the  mystery  of  striking.  There  was  not  a  village 
but  had  its  daily  afternoon  jollification,  with  a 
play  or  dance,  or  poem  a  la  Morris,  or  charade, 
or  picnic,  or  concert.  And  all  life  seemed  such  a 
frolic,  that  nobody  cared  to  go  to  Baden-Baden  or 


126  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

to  Christmas  Island,  for  a  Conferenz  or  a  Con 
vention. 

None  the  less  did  the  local  secretaries  foot  up 
their  books,  and  telegraph  the  result  to  Dalrym- 
ple  in  Norfolk.  Dalrymple's  hair  was  iron-gray 
now,  but  he  stepped  with  a  firm  gait,  and  his 
voice  rang  out  as  cheerily  as  ever.  With  such 
telegraphs  as  1882  worked,  his  communication 
even  with  Timbuctoo  was  easy.  Every  day  he 
received  some  dozens  of  despatches  from  different 
capitals ;  and  at  last,  late  in  October,  he  got  a  des 
patch  from  Irkutsk  informing  him  that  an  express 
was  in  from  an  outlying  region  of  the  Chalcha 
land  among  the  Mongols.  For  this  express  they 
had  been  waiting,  before  they  could  send  in  their 
totals.  And  Dalrymple  reverently  added  the 
figures  to  the  sum  of  all  the  other  stations  which 
he  had  cast  before.  That  total  was  99,998,180 

The  Irkutsk  despatch  gave  24,792 


So  the  grand  total  was  100,022,972 

souls. 

Horace,  dear  old  boy,  touched  a  key  of  his 
table  telegraph,  and  in  five  seconds  the  bells  of 
Swaff  ham,  and  Cockley,  and  Aylsham,  and  Dere- 


TEN  TIMES  TEN  MILLION.  127 

ham,  and  Hingham,  and  Norwich,  and  for  aught 
I  know,  of  half  England,  were  chiming  with 
triple  bob-majors  and  every  thing  else  that  would 
express  joy.  Ten  hours  of  joyful  chiming  in  Nor 
wich,  before  they  brought  the  bells  home!  Hor 
ace  touched  another  key,  and  sent  his  private 
despatch  to  young  Gladstone,  who  was  then  in 
his  father's  place  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treas 
ury.  In  five  seconds  more  the  Tower  guns  were 
firing,  —  nay,  in  ten  seconds  an  imperial  salute 
was  firing  from  every  battery  in  that  empire  on 
which  the  sun  never  sets.  Napoleon  IV.  did 
not  get  his  despatch  for  five  minutes.  He  was 
riding  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  and  the  "  repeat" 
did  not  find  him.  But  the  Home  Minister  got 
his,  and  took  the  responsibility  of  ordering  the 
French  salutes.  So  that  when  Napoleon  did 
get  the  paper,  he  knew  what  it  was  before  he 
opened  it. 

It  was  all  an  affair  of  seconds  over  the  world, 
announced  at  sunset,  sunrise,  noon,  or  midnight, 
according  to  your  longitude.  Our  President 
then  was  a  man  you  do  not  know,  John  Fisher. 
He  was  an  enthusiast.  And  his  arrangements 
for  salutes  were  so  perfect  that  he  said  there  was 


128  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

not  a  capital  city  in  America  but  knew  the  news 
sooner  than  Napoleon  IV.  had  it.  You  see  they 
had  nothing  to  do,  in  those  days,  with  the  gov 
ernment  stores  of  nitre  and  powder,  but  to  burn 
it  in  jollification.  So  they  burned  it. 

And  thus  it  was  an  old  story  to  most  of  the 
world  when,  the  next  morning,  at  the  head  of 
the  "Personal "  in  the  newspaper,  men  read  — 

TEN  TIMES  TEN  MIULION  IS  A  HUNDRED   MILLION. 


Dalrymple  wrote  me  a  philosophical  letter  this 
time.  He  confessed  that  he  had  been  terribly 
frightened  before  the  Irkutsk  despatch  came. 
As  it  was,  he  said,  it  was  by  the  skin  of  our 
teeth  we  were  saved.  He  bade  me  remark  the 
falling  off  between  109,341,270,  which,  as  he 
said,  should  have  been  the  number,  at  the  least, 
and  100,022,972,  which  it  was.  "  It  is  all  very 
well  for  the  multitude,"  said  he,  "  to  say  '  ten 
times  ten  million  is  a  hundred  million,'  and  that 
is,  thank  God,  one  of  the  eternal  truths.  But, 
for  all  that,  we  have  not  gained  tenfold  in  these 
three  years.  We  have  fallen  off  badly.  So 
much  for  the  quarrels  of  you  Dominies.  All 


TEN   TIMES   TEN   MILLION. 


129 


the  time  we  were  sticking  fast  on  the  Great 
Roll,  at  those  ninety-seven  millions  and  ninety- 
eight  millions  that  filled  up  so  slowly,  my  heart 
was  in  my  throat.  I  lost  my  appetite,  and  could 
not  hit  a  partridge  if  I  tried.  I  tell  you  a  million 
people  are  a  great  many.  And  when  that  plucky 
Tchitchakoft's  bulletin  came  in,  Fred,  I  could 
have  kissed  him.  But,  for  the  love  of  dear 
Harry,  let  us  have  no  more  quarrelling  among 
you  padres  !  " 


UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A  THOUSAND   MILLION. 

A  ND  why  were  all  these  salutes  fired,  the 
world  over?  Why  was  every  capital 
illuminated  ?  Why  was  there  a  holiday  given 
to  every  school?  Half-holidays  had  been  the 
universal  daily  custom  for  years  before.  It  was 
simply,  you  see,  that  a  tenth  part  of  the  people 
in  the  world  had  shown,  in  some  way  worth 
belief,  that  they  meant  — 

To  look  up  and  not  down, 
To  look  forward  and  not  back, 
To  look  out  and  not  in,  — 

and 

To  lend  a  hand. 

I  say  one  tenth,  in  round  numbers.  We  did 
not  know  in  1882  how  many  people  there  were 
in  the  worlcf  exactly.  But  we  had  subdued  some 
estimates,  and  we  had  swelled  some,  and  we 
"  conceited  "  that  there  were  rather  more  than  a 


A   THOUSAND   MILLION.  131 

thousand  million  men,  women,  and  children,  the 
world  over.  We  had  one  estimate  as  high  as 
1,228,000,000;  and  this  was,  for  want  of  a 
better,  taken  by  the  statistical  men  as  the  true 
one.  It  was  roughly  said  that  a  tenth  part  of 
these  were  those  little  children  of  whose  like  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  who  are  not  yet  pro 
faned  by  contact  with  earth,  or  who,  at  all  events, 
cannot  be  pledged  to  any  line  of  duty.  If  this 
were  so,  there  were,  in  round  hundreds,  one 
thousand  one  hundred  million  sentient,  sensible, 
and  responsible  people  in  the  world,  say  over 
three  years  old.  Now,  one  tenth  of  these,  as  I 
said,  were  willing  to  live  for  the  company  rather 
than  themselves.  This  willingness  started  this 
rejoicing.  Of  course  a  minority  so  large  as  that, 
practically  agreeing  on  a  few  principles,  ruled 
absolutely  the  larger  majority.  When  but  one 
man  in  thirteen  was  a  Christian  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  Constantine  found  it  politic  to  proclaim 
Christianity. 

But  we  meant  no  such  flash  in  the  pan  as 
Constantine's  proclamation.  We  had  not  seen 
the  Club  of  ten  enlarge  to  the  hundred  million, 
in  less  than  a  generation,  to  stop  there.  Indeed, 


132  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

the  ten  meanest  men  among  those  Chalcha  peo 
ple  were  as  much  in  earnest  as  any  of  us  of  the 
Original  Ten,  that  this  world,  and  nothing  less, 
should  be  put  on  a  few  simple  principles,  such 
as  Jesus  Christ  lived  for  and  died  for.  No  man 
said  any  thing  about  this.  The  quarrels  of  the 
Dominies  had  cured  us  of  talk  and  of  new 
methods.  Every  man  and  woman  understood 
that  there  was  no  short  cut  nor  patent  process. 
We  saw  that  the  thing  must  spread  by  contagion 
if  it  spread  at  all.  Still,  though  no  man  said 
any  thing,  I  can  tell  you  the  interest  became 
intense,  almost  terrible  sometimes,  as  those  next 
three  years  whirled  by. 

You  see  at  first  these  hundred  million  people 
were  very  unequally  divided.  Commerce,  adven 
ture,  and  all  that,  had  scattered  them  a  great 
deal ;  but  still  there  were  favored  points  and 
points  not  favored.  There  were  whole  villages, 
where,  as  far  as  you  could  see,  almost  every  man 
held  loyal  to  the  Four  Mottoes ;  where  you  were 
fairly  tempted  to  say  that  God's  own  kingdom 
of  love  had  come,  just  as  you  are  tempted  to 
say  that  of  some  Homes  you  and  I  know  of. 

But  these  people,  if  they  really  meant  "  to  lend 


A   THOUSAND   MILLION.  133 

a  hand,"  could  not  stay  in  any  such  four-square 
Sybaris  as  that.  Indeed  they  would  stifle  there, 
for  want  of  vital  air,  and  of  exercise.  They 
could  not  say  their  prayers  there,  indeed.  What 
use  in  praying  "  Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  wiL 
be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven,"  if 
they,  the  *very  work-people  to  whom  God  had 
intrusted  the  work  of  the  world,  were  doinsf 

'  O 

nothing  about  it  ?  And  of  course,  as  they  looked 
out  and  not  in,  and  forward  and  not  backward, 
they  did  not  satisfy  themselves  with  making  a 
contribution  in  church  to  help  send  one  man  in 
a  black  frock  coat  and  a  white  neck-cloth  to  do 
this  thing  for  them.  They  went  themselves,  in 
great  companies.  That  was  the  new  school  of 
missions  which  built  up  the  new  civilization : 
unless  you  remember  Lord  Baltimore,  and  Win- 
throp,  and  the  Mayflower^  or  perhaps  go  back  to 
Jsocrates  and  Herodotus,  and  say  it  was  the  old 
school  of  missions.  A  new  Sybaris,  say  better 
a  new  Nazareth,  would  plant  itself  right  in  the 
midst  of  a  horde  of  *Gauchos,  with  rifles  enough 
to  make  itself  respected,  —  yes,  but  with  dolls 
and  rattles  enough  for  the  Gaucho  babies,  bread 
and  butter  enough  for  the  Gaucho  women  if 


134  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

there  were  famine,  and,  in  general,  love  enough 
to  tame  any  Gaucho  chief  who  was  not  very 
thick-skinned.  All  over  the  world  you  saw  such 
clusters  of  young  people  going  from  worn-out 
soils  to  the  virgin  soils,  or  from  the  new  lands  to 
the  historical :  Old  and  New  playing  into  each 
other's  hands,  and,  by  wonderful  combinations, 
taking  tricks  which  had  been  thought  impossible 
before. 

Then  you  began  to  see  the  old  line  of  public 
appeal  exactly  changed.  The  advertisement 
became  the  appeal  of  generosity  instead  of  the 
plea  of  selfishness. 

From  the  New  York  Herald. 

A  MOTHER  and  her  daughter,  without  encum 
brance,  would  gladly  know  where  they  can  be  of 
use.  One  of  them  was  in  Mrs.  Emerson's  school,  and 
they  have  had  the  advantage  of  personal  acquaintance 
with  two  of  the  Original  Ten.  Address  M.  and  D., 
Herald  Office. 

FIVE   young  men,  who   graduate   this  summer  at 
Cornell,  would   like   to   go   to   any  part  of  the 
world  where  they  are  needed.     Will  bear  their  own 
expenses.     Have  heard  the  lectures  of  Mr.  Widdifield, 
and  the  brothers  Corcoran. 


A   THOUSAND   MILLION.  135 

A   WIDOW  with  four  children  will  take  into  her 
family  a  paralyzed  woman,  or  any  blind  person. 
Two  sons  good  at  lifting  invalids.    No  charge  for  board, 
lodging,  or  washing.     Address  LAUNDRESS. 

From  the  New  York  Observer. 

DISTANCE  no  objection.  Seven  families,  all  the 
members  of  which  are  in  good  health  and  have 
lived  together  without  quarrelling  for  seventeen  years, 
will  gladly  go  together  to  any  outpost.  None  of  them 
ever  believed  in  total  depravity.  Address  the  Editor  of 
this  Journal. 

SEVEN   languages !      Four   gentlemen   with    their 
wives,  in  whose  number  are  good  interpreters  in 
seven  languages,  are  ready  to  sail  at  a  moment's  warn 
ing.     No  charge  or  salary.     Have  met  personally  five 
of  the  Original  Ten.     Address  F.  O.  U.  R. 

TAETROIT  Club.  Eleven  members  of  the  Original 
-I—'  Detroit  Club,  with  their  families,  wish  to  corre 
spond  with  reference  to  duty.  From  an  experience  of 
twenty-four  years,  they  are  sure  that  they  shall  arouse 
no  animosity  among  any  Christians.  Inquire  of  the 
Editor  of  the  Observer. 

E  graduates  of  Humboldt  College,  Iowa,  of  the 
present  Senior  Class  —  three  hundred  and  seven 
in  number  —  offer  themselves  for  duty.  Can  work  their 
way  as  stokers  if  necessary.  They  belong  to  one  hun 
dred  and  seven  religious  sects,  and  are  yet  to  know  their 


136  TEN  TIMES  ONE  IS  TEN. 

first  dissension.  If  necessary,  two.  hundred  and  ninety- 
four  ladies  can  accompany  them.  Address  Senior, 
Springvale,  Humboldt,  Iowa. 

And  so  on,  and  so  on.  These  are  only  a  few 
out  of  hundreds.  And  they  are  enough  to  show 
you  how  the  world  is  really  turned  round,  when 
the  people  in  it,  instead  of  inquiring  first  about 
what  they  shall  eat  and  drink,  are  inquiring  first 
how  the  kingdom  of  God  shall  come. 

And,  I  promise  you,  with  such  practical  use  of 
the  machinery  of  daily  life,  the  kingdom  could 
be  §een  coming.  The  enlargement  of  the  world, 
or  of  man's  intercourse  in  the  world,  of  course 
all  the  time  made  the  world  smaller.  The  tele 
graphs,  the  journeys  back  and  forth  to  old  homes, 
the  enlargement  of  means  of  life  and  love,  as  the 
old  war  establishments  were  put  down  and  the 
old  taxes  forgotten, —  all  these  things  brought  Irk 
utsk  and  North  Colchester  very  near  each  other ; 
•c  nd  it  no  longer  seemed  strange  to  find  Harry's 
portrait  in  a  sledge,  as  you  drove  across  the 
Baikal. 

Indeed,  I  believe  that  any  true  history  of  those 
years  would  show  that  the  greatest  difficulties 
were  not  among  these  distant  people.  For  the 


A   THOUSAND   MILLION.  137 

first  time  in  history,  we  began  to  get  interesting 
letters  from  the  outposts.  You  see,  these  people 
not  looking  in,  but  looking  out,  did  not  have  to 
tell  us  much  of  their  own  headaches  or  heart 
aches  or  belly-aches,  but  were  able  to  devote  all 
their  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  to  the  things  that 
they  saw,  which  we  at  home  wanted  them  to 
describe.  They  dealt  largely  with  simple  people, 
and  it  sometimes  seemed  as  if  their  accounts  were 
of  a  "  nation  in  a  day,"  as  the  hymn  says ;  though 
really  they  caught  all  their  converts  with  the 
hook,  and  not  in  a  net.  It  was  not  on  the  out 
skirts  that  the  last  difficulties  were  found.  But 
as  every  man  finds  that  the  hardest  knots  he  has 
to  chop  through  are  those  which  have  been  wait 
ing  in  his  own  wood-shed  while  easier  work  was 
done,  so  it  proved  now,  that  the  very  hardest 
jobs  of  all  were  in  some  of  the  home  stations, 
in  breaking  up  hard-pan  which  we  had  been  for 
generations  trampling  down. 

Just  one  story  of  such  difficulty,  and  the 
whole  history  of  victory  may  be  brought  to  an 
end. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  the  last  of  those  three 
years.  .Every  thing  seemed  happy,  smooth,  con- 


138  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

tented,  vigorous,  and  wise.  Those  of  us  who 
were  in  the  movement  —  and  who  indeed  was 
not?  —  could  not  find  man,  woman,  or  talking 
child,  this  land  through,  who  was  not  somehow 
or  other  showing  practical  sympathy  with  us. 
I  think  it  was  rather  as  a  jollification,  than 
to  point  out  any  new  line  of  work,  that  the 
"  Reformed  Association  of  Covenanters  of  the 
New  Lanark  Platform  "  held  their  great  decennial 
convention  at  Sherman  City.  This,  you  know, 
was  one  of  the  most  important  ecclesiastical 
gatherings  that  we  could  have  in  this  country. 
The  newspapers  had  so  little  else  to  tell  that  they 
all  had  reporters  there.  Seven  hundred  clergy  and 
fourteen  hundred  lay  delegates  were  in  attend 
ance.  The  meeting  was  held  in  a  Rink,  with 
temporary  seats,  so  that  every  thing  seemed  to 
promise  a  happy  time.  Never  did  a  more  plucky 
or  manly  set  of  fellows  bear  cross  on  their 
shoulders  than  the  men  I  knew  who  were  in 
that  convention.  By  way  of  doing  honor  to  age 
and  experience  and  learning,  old  Dr.  Philpotts 
had  been  appointed  president,  and  he  was  to 
preach  the  opening  sermon. 

Imagine,   then,   the   haggard   dismay,  of  all 


A   THOUSAND    MILLION.  139 

parties,  —  press,  town,  delegates,  everybody,  — 
when  the  old  gentleman  gave  out  his  text,  "  And 
what  concord  hath  Christ  with  Belial?  "  (2  Cor. 
v.  15),  and  proceeded,  in  the  most  systematic 
way,  to  "  pitch  in  "  to  the  four  Detroit  mottoes ! 
First,  h-e  should  show  that  it  was  impossible  for 
a  regenerate  man  to  look  up,  and  that  his  duty 
was  to  look  down.  "  Why  stand  ye  gazing  up 
into  heaven?"  (Acts  i.  11.)  Second,  he  should 
show  that  every  regenerate  man  must  look  back 
ward  rather  than  forward.  "  Remember  the  days 
of  darkness."  (Eccl.  xi.  8.)  Third,  he  should 
show  that  every  regenerate  man  must  commune 
first  with  his  own  soul.  "  While  I  was  musing, 
the  fire  burned."  (Ps.  xxxix.  3.)  Fourth,  and 
lastly,  that  all  the  dangers  at  which  he  had 
hinted  were  slight  indeed  compared  with  that 
Covenant  of  Works,  in  which  men  were  tempted 
to  suppose  that  they  could  advance  or  hinder 
the  Creator's  plans.  "  A  fox  shall  break  down 
their  stone  wall."  (Nehemiah  iv.  3.)  If  you  live 
to  1885,  you  will  perhaps  fall  in  with  this  cele 
brated  sermon  in  print.  I  spare  you  the  detail, 
therefore.  About  the  close  there  was  no  "  if. " 
"  You  have  observed,  my  friends,  that  I  have 


140  TEN  TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

considered  the  fittest  subject  of  our  meditations 
on  this  occasion  to  be  a  series  of  fascinating 
errors,  which  have  led  astray  a  few  giddy  young 
men,  in  the  thought  or  hope  that  they  had  found 
out  a  better  gospel!  Let  us  all  hope  that  these 
straws  of  human  harvesting  may  be  blown  away 
even  as  chaff  by  the  wind  of  the  Infinite  Spirit. 
For  myself,  as  the  representative  of  this  august 
assembly,  —  though  these  were  to  be  my  last 
words,  —  looking  round  upon  the  sacrilegious 
mottoes  which  deform  and  deface  the  Hall  in 
which  we  are  assembled,  I  declare  that  I  will 
never  accept  them  as  principles  of  conduct  — 
never,  never,  never!"  And  with  this  outburst 
he  sat  down. 

In  fact,  when  Vittermayer  had  painted  the 
Kink  in  real  fresco,  he  had  wrought  in  the  four 
mottoes  on  the  four  walls.  By  this  time  they 
were  so  universal  that  you  saw  them  every 
where. 

People  were  aghast !  There  was  not  a  human 
being  in  the  assembly,  except  the  good  old  Doc 
tor,  who  was  not  up  to  his  eyes  in  the  determi 
nation  that  this  world  should  be  made  a  world 
of  Faith,  Hope,  and  Love.  So  indeed  was  he. 


A   THOUSAND   MILLION.  141 

But  he  had  found  it  necessary  to  make  his  indi 
vidual  and  loyal  protest  against  the  way  things 
were  going  on,  because  they  were  rather  different 
from  the  way  he  supposed  they  went  on  in  the 
Covenanters'  time.  There  was  a  horrid  hush  for 
a  moment,  and  then  "Wilderspin  stepped  for 
ward  and  gave  out,  — 

"  Had  I  the  tongues  of  Greeks  and  Jews," 
to  be  sung  by  the  congregation.     They  sung  it 
with  a  will,  and  blew  off  steam  a  little  so.   Wil 
derspin  invoked  a  benediction,  and  they  went 
sadly  home. 

Then  began  synods,  and  committees,  and 
every  sort  of  mutual  conference,  to  make  the  old 
Doctor  back  down.  "  Think  how  it  will  sound 
among  those  nice  Bamangwato  people,"  said  my 
Pauline ;  and  everybody  had  some  like  feeling. 
But  the  old  man  was  flint.  They  got  him,  at 
last,  to  say  in  a  letter,  that,  in  a  modified  sense, 
a  Christian  might  look  up  to  God  without  step 
ping  off  the  platform  of  the  Reformed  Covenant 
ers,  which  was  the  great  object  with  him, — 
then  that  he  might  forget  himself,  without  dan 
gerous  sin,  —  and  that  he  even  ought  to  look 
forward  to  a  happier  future ;  but,  as  to  "  lending; 


142  TEN   TIMES   ONE  IS   TEN. 

a  hand,"  never !  cried  the  old  man.  "  It  is  a 
Covenant  of  Works,  and  union  with  the  Devil." 

So  sadly  came  the  October  in  which  we 
had  hoped  so  much.  All  the  other  secretaries 
reported  a  world  subdued  by  Love.  In  all  the 
other  continents  men  had  found  some  way  to 
express  this  Love,  and  the  Faith  and  Hope 
which  were  intertwined  with  it.  All  princes 
and  all  people  were  hoping  and  praying  that,  as 
October  passed  away,  one  joyful  signal  the 
world  over  might  show  that  the  horrors  of  old 
history  were  sealed  in  one  tomb,  and  that  in  one 
unanimous  heart-beat  a  world  of  self-forgetting 
men  would  begin  to  live  as  one  hearty  family  of 
God!  But  here  was  one  man,  who  with  the 
noblest  motive  cried  out,  "  Never,  never,  never ! " 
Whatever  else  might  happen,  he  would  never 
say  he  would  "  lend  a  hand." 

The  thirty-first  day  of  October  dawned.  I 
will  confess  that  it  was  a  sad  day.  Newman 
wrote  me  that  to  him  it  was  a  bitter  morning. 
He  had  been  all  the  evening  before  discussing 
the  Monophysite  heresy  with  Dr.  Philpotts.  "  I 
had  forgotten  the  hated  names  for  years,"  wrote 
poor  Newman ;  and  so  he  had  led  round  to  the 


A   THOUSAND   MILLION.  143 

beauty  of  Unity  among  Brethren,  to  which 
the  old  man  had  assented  sweetly ;  and  then 
Newman  had  asked,  timidly,  if,  with  a  change 
of  the  language,  he  could  not  bring  his  heart 
to  agree  to  "  do  good  as  he  had  opportunity  "  ? 
"  Covenant  of  Works ! "  said  the  old  Trojan ; 
"  Never,  never,  never  !  "  So  Newman  went  home, 
and  so  waked  sadly.  A  sad  breakfast.  None 
of  them  could  get  to  work.  And  Newman  wrote 
me  that  he  thanked  God  even  when  he  heard 
the  fire-alarm  strike,  because  it  was  an  excuse 
for  him  to  leave  his  study. 

But  when  he  came  to  the  district,  he  bitterly 
rued  that  selfish  thought.  The  fire  was  a  sud 
den  and  bad  one.  It  was  already  checked  below, 
but  smoke  was  pouring  up  and  out  of  the  attic 
windows  of  the  warehouse  or  factory  where  it 
had  been  burning.  It  proved  to  be  a  factory  of 
paper-boxes,  and  the  pasting  women  in  the  attics 
had  been  stifling  from  the  smoke.  They  lay 
out  on  the  steep  roof,  with  their  feet  stayed  in 
the  gutters,  when  Newman  came  there.  George 
Davis  and  Lawrence  Flaherty  were  moving 
heaven  and  earth  to  bring  their  ladders  to  the 
eaves,  —  and  did  so ;  but  no  man  could  stand 


144  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

the  smoke,  as  he  ran  up,  —  far  less  did  those 
poor  girls  dare  to  risk  it,  coming  down.  New 
man  told  me  he  saw  five  fellows  in  succes 
sion  dash  up  Flaherty's  ladder,  waver,  and  lose 
their  heads,  and  drop  senseless  into  the  arms  of 
the  crowd  below.  At  last  flames  began  to  break 
out  of  the  fourth-story  window,  and  to  lap  and 
lick  up  the  outside  of  the  building.  Three  min 
utes,  and  the  whole  would  be  over,  —  when  a 
tall-man,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  ran  boldly  down 
the  slope  of  the  roof  of  the  church  next  the  fac 
tory  ;  by  an  easy  spring  jumped  across  the  five- 
feet  chasm  between  the  buildings,  walked  like  a 
cat  to  the  dormer  behind  which  these  five  girls 
were  crouching ;  and  then  could  be  seen  leading 
them,  lifting  them,  encouraging ;  and  then  actu 
ally  carrying  one  along  the  giddy  gutter-edge, 
till  he  had  led  them  all  to  the  more  sheltered 
side  upon  which  he  had  sprung.  Davis  had 
caught  the  idea  already ;  and,  by  the  time  that 
last  faint  child  was  on  that  side,  Davis  himself 
was  at  his  ladder's  top  to  take  her.  One,  two, 
three, —  all  five  passed  down,  —  and  then  Shirt 
sleeves,  as  the  crowd  called  him,  sprang  back 
across  the  gulf  to  the  church-roof ;  and  running  up 


A    THOUSAND   MILtJON.  145 

the  slates  to  the  tower,  slipped  in,  and  disappeared. 
The  whole  throng  was  cheering  and  yelling. 
The  girls  were  taken,  I  know  not  how,  —  and 
tended,  I  know  not  by  whom.  Everybody  but 
Davis  and  Flaherty  seemed  to  forget  the  fire ; 
and  Newman  found  himself  (as  I  suppose  every 
one  did)  asking  who  Shirt-sleeves  was,  and 
where  he  had  gone.  The  general  impression 
was,  seeing  he  had  come  down  from  the  steeple, 
that  he  was  an  angel  in  shirt-sleeves.  Talk  grew 
loud  at  the  church-door,  which  proved  to  be 
locked.  At  last  the  fussy,  lazy  sexton  appeared 
on  the  steps,  trying,  by  his  air,  to  make  people 
think  that  he  was  virtually  the  hero  of  the  occa 
sion,  though  he  had  not  happened  to  do  that 
particular  deed.  "  Hannay,"  cried  Newman,  "  is 
that  you  ?  who  was  the  man,  —  where  is  he  ?  " 

<{  Locked    up   in    his    study,"    said    Hannay ; 
"  sees  no  one  till  office-hour." 

"  Study  ?  "  cried    Newman.     "  Who    do    you 
say  it  is  ?  " 

"  Why,    don't  you   know  ? "    says    Hannay. 
"  Guess  you  don't  see  him  in  his  shirt-sleeves 
as  often  as  I  do.     He  saws  all  the  wood  for  the 
furnace  fires.     Why,  it  is  the  old  Doctor ! " 
10 


146  TEN  TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

Newman  turned  to  the  crowd,  waved  his  hand, 
and  cried,  "  Three  times  three  for  Dr.  Philpotts ! " 
And  did  they  not  cheer  vsll? 

Yes :  the  stanch  old  theologian,  who  would 
have  died  before  he  would  accept  a  "  Covenant 
of  Works,"  had  risked  his  life,  without  one  anx 
ious  thought,  for  those  five  girls.  "  A  trick  I 
learned  when  I  was  unregenerate,"  he  said  after 
wards.  "  I  was  an  undergraduate  at  Cambridge, 
and  had  some  duties  to  discharge  in  taking  the 
tongue  out  from  the  chapel  bell." 

And  the  Sherman  City  papers  stopped  the 
press,  and  put  in  EXTRAS,  to  announce  u  Gal 
lantry  of  Dr.  Philpotts ! "  «  Dr.  Philpotts  lends  a 
hand  !  "  And  the  local  secretary  telegraphed  to 
the  Middle  States  Secretary,  and  he  telegraphed 
to  the  Central  Union  Secretary,  and  he  tele 
graphed  to  Dalrymple,  — 

«  Dr.  Philpo  ts  has  lent  a  hand!  " 

And  this  was  all  anybody  was  waiting  for. 
And  before  noon  of  that  day,  the  Brothers  in 
Unity  at  Fort  Grant  were  firing  a  salute  from 
the  two  cannon  left  for  that  purpose;  so  that 
when  the  Doctor's  study  was  open  at  his  office- 
hour,  he  and  all  men  knew  that  the  whole  world 


A  THOUSAND  MILLION.  147 

was  One.  The  old  gentleman  was  overwhelmed 
with  visitors.  He  received  their  congratulations 
and  thanks  cordially ;  but  he  said,  "  I  have  not 
acceded,  and  I  never  will  accede,  to  a  Covenant 
of  Works." 

That  day  the  whole  world  held  festival.  All 
schools  were  dismissed,  all  banks  and  work 
shops  and  factories  closed,  —  all  "unnecessary 
labor  suspended,"  —  as  the  great  salutes  and 
the  great  chimes  came  booming  out,  which 
announced  the  agreement  of  a  world  of  self- 
forgetting  men.  That  day  do  I  say  ?  Every 
day  from  that  day  was  festival,  century  after 
century.  So  soon  as  the  world  once  learned  the 
infinite  blessing  of  Active  Love,  and  stayed  it 
by  Faith,  and  enjoyed  it  in  Hope,  there  was 
no  danger  that  the  world  should  unlearn  that 
lesson. 

That  lesson  —  if  this  vision  of  a  possibility 
prove  true — comes  to  the  world  by  no  change 
of  law,  by  no  new  revelation,  nor  other  gospel 
than  the  world  has  now.  It  comes  simply  as 
man  after  man,  and  woman  after  woman,  lead 
such  unselfish  lives  as  all  of  us  see  sometimes, 


148  TEN   TIMES   ONE   IS   TEN. 

as  all  would  be  glad  to  live,  as  dear  Harry 
Wadsworth  led  while  his  short  life  went  on. 

Nine  triads  of  years  were  enough  each  to  add 
a  zero  to  the  figure  which  stood  for  that  one 
man. 

Ten  times  one  was  ten,  10  X  1  =  10.  There 
was  one  zero. 

But  as  the  nine  zeroes  were  added,  in  twenty- 
seven  years  the  1.  became  1,000,000,000  — 
ONE  THOUSAND  MIULION. 

This  proved  to  be  the  number  of  the  Happy 
World  ! 


Cambridge .  Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  John  Wilson  and 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


Y  1920 


T* 

\ 

x> 


30m-6,'14 


Hale 


id.  '&&&  one  -is 


Jan  £9  1912 


Jnn 


JU'N 


Baden 


u,c 


JLDR 


Ell 


li  168 


cop.l 


AY  141913 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


